


Don't Stop Me (Having A Good Time)

by chanhunchateau (kaisoochateau)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Oblivious Sehun, Pining Chanyeol, Queen Fanboying, Slice of Life, roommate!AU, university!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2020-01-16 12:15:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18521341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaisoochateau/pseuds/chanhunchateau
Summary: As one of the most popular people in his business course, Sehun prides himself on his ability to stay cool and collected at all times, and that's why he doesn't know why his roommate's sudden confession is affecting him like this.





	1. Don't Stop Me Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [poodleyeol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/poodleyeol/gifts).



> pairings: sehun/chanyeol  
> genre: slice of life, uni!au, roommate!au  
> rating: pg-13 (for sexual references)  
> song: don't stop me now - queen  
> a/n: so this was originally @daejongvu's BRILLIANT idea that i hijacked and stole as a birthday present for @poodleyeol's birthday... which was feb 19th... let's just pretend this didn't take me an entire year to write... i know i KNOW i'm slow but i had so much fun with this fic and i'm quite happy with how it turned out! now pls sit back and enjoy these dumb roommates being dumb <3

By the time his last _Multinational Financial Management_ tutorial grinds to a stop on a Friday afternoon, Sehun is solely running off of two thermoses of instant coffee and the promise of a long nap back at home.

As he marches across Kyunghee campus towards his dorm, houndstooth scarf draped over his shoulders and breaths white in the March air, the last thing he wants is to be spotted by his two best friends, ignoring as they call out his name.

But Baekhyun and Jongdae have never been able to take a hint, and Sehun’s longer strides can’t save him from when his annoying hyungs want something. After being chased down by his rambling friends, Sehun has to give up on the rest that he’s been holding out for since _We Are The Champions_ went off at 8AM that morning, and instead swipe them into the student lodging elevator.

Sehun still regrets the day almost one year ago when he invited his friends from _International Business_ up to his dorm after a shared tutorial. This was back when Sehun was new to Seoul and interested in getting closer to the then-third-years who thought introductory business classes would make good bludge electives, and who Sehun realized he can scam free soju off of while he’s still underage. But since Baekhyun and Jongdae are locals that both live with their parents, Sehun’s now the one stuck hosting them in his cramped two-bedroom place, which they’ve elected as their favorite hang-out spot for when they’re too lazy to bus over to the Dongdaemun bars.

Trying to tune out his friends’ voices, who are now going on about some dorm party that’s happening tomorrow, Sehun keys in the number code to unlock his front door. To his surprise, he steps inside and is met with ice-cold silence, just like how he left the common area that morning in his rush to get to lectures.

Maybe his roommate went out today, though Sehun doubts it when his favorite Nike slides are still neatly tucked by the entrance, and when he only has one class on Fridays that he normally skips-

“Woah woah, it’s freezing in here!” Baekhyun yells, sneakers chucked off to barge past Sehun, jostling him back into the present, and Sehun huffs to himself.

“Can you guys keep it down while you’re here?” he clips, which Baekhyun only mockingly drones back at him, he and Jongdae already dumping their stuff wherever they please.

By the time Sehun’s got the thermostat whirring, his friends are loudly sprawled across the sunken green couch, their feet up on the coffee table that doubles as a dining area, even with the countless times Sehun has told them not to. With no space left next to either of them, Sehun grimaces as he lowers himself down to the cushion on the floor and crosses his legs, thighs burning from his cycling class the day before.

“- what about this outfit?” Jongdae’s blabbering on, Sehun not covering up his yawn as he pulls his phone from his leather backpack.

“Aw, come on, man, it’s too much,” Baekhyun laughs out beside him.

“No way! Hunnie, you like this look, right?” Jongdae coaxes, and Sehun only spares a distasteful glance at the camo bomber and orange harem pants, before going back to swiping away notifications. “Oh, seriously?! What am I supposed to wear, then?”

“You’ve just gotta keep it simple, but stylish,” Baekhyun states with a smirk, still convinced that dressing head to toe in brand-name athletic gear is the height of fashion.

As his friends throw back and forth pitiful choices from Jongdae’s closet to help 'get him back in the game' since his girlfriend broke up with him, Sehun replies to the group chats and texts he’s left muted all day, quickly filling up his next week with cardio classes and study sessions. When he feels the warmth finally starting to rise from the wooden planks beneath him, he unwraps his scarf and shirks off his long, black coat, letting them both pile behind him so he can keep planning.

“- why don’t you borrow Hunnie’s clothes?!” Sehun catches Baekhyun offering, and shoots him a glare that his friend doesn’t even notice.

“What’s wrong with my closet?” Jongdae protests. “His stuff would be way too big on me, anyway!”

“As if you care whether or not your clothes fit you,” Sehun deadpans, because Jongdae still hasn’t grasped the concept of only wearing _one_ oversized statement piece at a time. “Besides, you’re not allowed to come anywhere near my wardrobe-”

“Wait- hold on! Maybe I should borrow your clothes!” Jongdae gasps out in realization, pointing at Sehun who rolls his eyes at being ignored. “Seulgi and Seungwan are always going on about how you dress well, so I’ve gotta look better than you do, tomorrow!”

“And since when am I coming? Dorm parties are so first year,” Sehun snips, discarding his now cleared phone to give them a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, I dunno,” Jongdae starts off sarcastically, and Sehun has to hold back another yawn, missing when Jongdae was still taken and on his side about these things, rather than Baekhyun's. “Maybe since we ran into Seulgi today and she asked ‘is Sehun going to Taeil’s party?’, and we were like ‘oh yeah, we all are!’, but we don’t know who the hell Taeil is, and we can’t just show up to a party full of second-years when we weren’t actually invited, now can we?!”

“Well, none of that sounds like my problem,” Sehun deadpans. But at the sudden idea of messing with them both, he fakes a concerned frown and starts to speak slowly. “But hyungs… If you’re so worried about it, isn’t that a sign you should be flirting with girls your own age? And shouldn’t you be trying to graduate, instead of always partying with us? I think some of the girls are starting to find it creepy-”

Having unleashed their garbled protests, Sehun simply smirks to himself and leans back, finding it more interesting to pick at the lint on his beige cashmere sweater than to listen.

“- woah woah, hang on, Dae- at least we do actually get laid, unlike him!” Baekhyun tries to comfort Jongdae, which Sehun can’t help but scoff at. He could easily disprove it, but he lets his friends believe what they want. “Y’know what- I bet it’s because the girls at uni are too _young_ for him!”

“Holy crap! That’s gotta be it!” Jongdae latches onto, his mouth agape, and Sehun would love to hear _how_ they came to that conclusion. “Remember when he even turned down Joohyun-noona at Syndrome-”

“Yeah, and she’s like five years older- she’s changed degrees even more times than us! I’m telling you, unless she’s as old as Miranda Kerr, he’s not gonna be into it!” Baekhyun exclaims, so insistent on his ridiculous theory that Sehun has to hold back a laugh, shaking his head to himself.

“Actually, it doesn’t matter how old _they_ are,” Sehun corrects, a blunt reminder for his friends who continuously forget about him coming out to them, like it hadn’t taken months of internal deliberation for Sehun to finally give in and tell them. “As long as they’re more mature than you two, I don’t care-”

“Oi, Hunnie- maybe someone’s _mom_ will be there tomorrow, and you can come onto her,” Baekhyun taunts, making him and Jongdae instantly crack up, and Sehun doesn’t even bother to roll his eyes, this time.

Going back on his phone, Sehun starts scrolling down his Instagram Explore page, Baekhyun and Jongdae’s jokes and ugly laughs mixing into one giant headache that pokes at his temples.

Unlike his friends, Sehun doesn’t feel the need to tell everyone about who he hooks up with, which actually does include a New Year’s kiss with Kyunghee’s beauty, Joohyun, when he’d lost the rest of his group at the Gangnam nightclub. He knows that _every_ guy at the university would lose their shit if they knew, but unless it was actually something serious, Sehun likes to keep some private things to himself, and besides, there's no chance of anything like that happening soon.

Of course, he’s had more than a few date offers, from both guys on apps that’s he’s boredly swiped through and from girls he’s barely noticed in his classes, all of which he’s turned down. Now that Sehun finally has the freedom of controlling his own schedule, he tells himself that he isn’t interested in anything higher commitment than just one night stands, and even then, he’s felt like having them less often than he'd planned to once he finally moved cities.

At the soft sound of a door being opened deeper in the apartment, Sehun’s ears prick up, thoughts paused as his head automatically turns to the unlit corridor where he can hear footsteps pad across the floorboards.

Chanyeol might never have said it out loud, but Sehun knows that his socially awkward roommate hates when Baekhyun and Jongdae come over, especially if it’s without warning. And since the walls are paper-thin in this place, Chanyeol must have his huge BOSE headphones on, blasting Queen’s greatest hits loud enough for anyone else to make out, and he’s about to get a bad shock when he sees the two people crashing in their living room.

Sehun’s fully expecting that Chanyeol will turn around and immediately shrink back into his room, and he hopes he can at least catch Chanyeol’s glance and mouth a silent apology to the shadowed figure before he disappears.

But to Sehun’s surprise, Chanyeol totters straight out into the light, with his puffy eyes squinted behind circular lenses and his head bowed, as if it's being weighed down by the thick mess of black curls on his head. In a sleepy trance, he shuffles behind where Sehun’s sitting without making eye contact, almost stumbling over his overly long track pants as he heads straight for the kitchen.

Holding back a long sigh, Sehun’s heart can’t help but go out to his roommate, who’s now in his fourth and final year of a _Computer Engineering_ undergrad. By only the fifth week of the first semester, Sehun can understand why Chanyeol had been dreading it so much, when his hyung's already got 25% weighted assessments due back-to-back, on top of the graduation thesis that he needs to have at 10,000 words by the end of the year.

Seeing how miserable Chanyeol looks right now, Sehun wishes he could convince himself that the all-nighter his roommate must have pulled was to make progress on his _Embedded System Application_ assignment, that’s due this Sunday evening. But Sehun knows better, and he knows that his hyung has definitely reached that stage of anxious procrastination where he can’t do anything except obsessively play PUBG without even enjoying it.

This is probably Chanyeol’s first food of the day, Sehun watching as he opens the fridge to blankly stare at whatever’s left from either of their grocery hauls, which isn’t much because Chanyeol gets the majority of their supplies on the weekend. There’s definitely a container of his meal-prepped pork jjigae in there, because Sehun, who can’t afford to always be getting fast food around campus, took the second-last one for lunch today. He doubts Chanyeol can be bothered to heat anything up at the moment, though, or maybe he’s sick of the stew after having to eat it for five days straight.

“- right Hunnie, don’t you think?” Baekhyun demands, vaguely catching Sehun’s attention with his now lowered voice.

“What?” Sehun clips back, still concentrated on Chanyeol’s half-awake frown.

“We should take the girls out to Hidden Track if the party’s a drag,” Baekhyun states, and Sehun winces when he sees Chanyeol take out the chocolate milk carton.

He wants to call out that it’s probably gone off since Chanyeol picked it up to satisfy Sehun’s sudden craving- but Chanyeol pulls a grimace after one sniff, before setting it back on the shelf and letting Sehun relax.

“- oi, are you even listening to me, Oh Sehun?” Baekhyun huffs.

“Yeah yeah, I am...” Sehun brushes off, confused by Chanyeol’s decision to take out two Yakults and a carrot before waddling back to his room, but at least it’s something to snack on that shouldn’t give him food poisoning.

Since Chanyeol won’t reemerge for the rest of the night otherwise, as soon as Baekhyun and Jongdae leave, Sehun will have to try and coax him out with whatever his lack of cooking skills can scrounge up for dinner-

“Well, it doesn’t seem like it,” Jongdae complains, making Sehun finally turn back to his two unamused friends.

“I haven’t even said that I’m coming,” Sehun reminds them.

“Come on, man, what else are you gonna do? You wanna be stuck with your- weird- zombie roommate all night?” Baekhyun asks as he gestures behind him to a retreating Chanyeol, who is only a grey oversized hoodie at this point. “Doing lame crap and wasting away your youth? Then, be our guest.”

If Sehun really wanted to piss Baekhyun off, he’d be honest and say that he’d much rather stay in and rewatch _Bohemian Rhapsody,_ which Chanyeol just downloaded onto his laptop so they could see it together this time.

But Chanyeol has to do his assignment anyway, and despite how little he's wanted to so many times, Sehun has never let himself miss a single party or social gathering since he came to this uni. And now, he reminds himself that he's got nothing else planned tomorrow except a gym session and a coffee catch-up, plus, he did use his Lunar New Year money to treat himself to a tan corduroy jacket that he hasn’t had the chance to wear yet, so why wouldn't he want to go?

“Just bring the soju and I’ll be there,” Sehun tells his friends dismissively.

 

**🟊**

 

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, Sehun mouths along to the sped up chorus of _Don't Stop Me Now_ as he tries to comb down the few short strands that refuse to sit nicely at the back of his head.

After his platinum blonde phase last year, Sehun has since given up on the monthly maintenance and salon prices that took up the majority of his parents' allowance to instead keep his pitch black hair short and styled. But there’s one tuft that refuses to lay flat with the rest of his head, and Sehun huffs to himself, tempted to grab his hair gel and spike up the rest of his hair to match. He does have a good hour before he has to leave because of how early he got ready, contemplating the new hair option when Brian May’s guitar solo is broken up by KakaoTalk pinging from his phone.

The flood of new messages has to be from the one group chat he doesn’t have muted at the moment, because he’s still waiting on his friends to confirm that they didn’t buy the cheap brand of soju just to piss him off. Comb tossed onto the sink counter amongst open makeup products and crumpled tissues, Sehun whips up his phone and leans against the tiled wall, pausing his music to flick through the chat.

_Baekhyun: heyyy man_

_Baekhyun: so uh_

_Baekhyun: about tonight…_

_Baekhyun: not coming bro. Sorry_

_Jongdae: HEY you said I could message first!!_

_Baekhyun: haHAHA_

_Jongdae: I can't make it either, but pretend I said it before baek!_

_Jongdae: I didn’t want to be the second person to bail_

_Baekhyun: omg how could you dae!! so rude wtf_

_Baekhyun: but yeah sorry hunnieeeee >< lets go out next week~~~! _

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sehun says in a frustrated groan, running his hands through his hair and ruining all his previous hard work.

It's not like he's even that surprised- his friends constantly ditch plans at the last minute, which had Sehun intensely paranoid in the beginning of last year, but that he can now convince himself isn't anything personal. So he stops to first check himself out in the mirror, deciding that the messier look kind of works with his hair, before he then goes off at his friends.

With lightning fast thumbs, he types out a text that he hopes sounds more indignant than he actually feels, and raises some guilt in his unreliable hyungs.

_Sehun: Seriously guys?? This was your idea in the first place and I just finished getting ready!! Your excuses better be good!!_

Baekhyun’s response is immediate, and only has Sehun rolling his eyes, barely surprised.

_Baekhyun: minseok-hyungs taking us to a new booking club in gwangjin!! over 20s only!_

His next text is a bunch of his favorite emoticons: the side eyes, eggplants, tongues, and water spurts that Sehun only replies back to with a curt _‘I hate you both’,_ and _‘You owe me double the andong soju’_ before pocketing his phone.

Turning back to the mirror, Sehun leans over the sink to inspect his reflection.

He’s only got his white cotton turtleneck on since the bathroom is heated, but it’s perfectly fitted to make his shoulders look broad and his arms toned from all the bicep curls he purposefully did today, with the hem stopping just low enough to tease a bit of Adam’s apple. Looking more closely, even with the awful lighting that normally catches his skin’s every flaw and casts shadows under all his bumps, his face looks super smooth today, partly because of his new Chanel foundation and his better eating habits lately. But his eyes are what really stand out, with circle lenses and the hint of dark brown he put in his outer corners, plus a thin rim around the lid and waterline making them deeper and sharper than ever.

 _Damn,_  Sehun thinks with an unregretful sigh. He looks _way_ too good for no one to see him tonight, actually hot enough that he'd consider trying to get his own hook up, except that he'd rather wake up early tomorrow, ready to go the gym, rather than hungover in someone else's bedroom. So, in that case, he'll want a friend to go to the party with, already grabbing his phone back out to skim through his KKTalk contacts, hoping one of the many names he’s saved will pop out as someone loud and fun, because Sehun's learnt that parties are always less awkward if he can circle back to them when his other conversations dry out.

Almost at the bottom of his list with no luck, the best candidates either already invited or busy, Sehun’s about to accept going alone when his thumb pauses above the Y contacts, where _Yeollie Hyung_ grabs his attention.

Sucking in his lower lip to chew on, Sehun tries to recall any time in the past year and two months together that his roommate has gone to someone’s party, and the only time he can think of is when Chanyeol’s bowling team won against Sogang University and went out to celebrate. Even then, Chanyeol had returned home from the bar about one hour into night because Sehun had come down with a sudden stomach bug, so it barely counts.

Which means that Sehun can’t guarantee that his hyung has _ever_ been to a university party, period. Sehun’s willing to bet money that it would be by choice, though, since even though Chanyeol bumps into friends wherever he goes, he tries to leave the apartment as little as possible, and only at night if it’s for bowling practice or whatever his main interest is at the time - right now, that's his board game club.

When it's Sehun and Chanyeol together, they always keep it to just the two of them, and while they'll sometimes go out for late-night grocery runs or to try out new restaurants on Chanyeol's credit card, Sehun can let himself be honest when he's not up for anything except ordering takeout and lazing around the apartment, so the two of them will stay up playing video games or watching their variety shows.

But it’s worth inviting him tonight, Sehun resolves, just in case his hyung was curious about it, and it would be a satisfying dig at Baekhyun and Jongdae, who would have a fit if they knew Sehun was actually willing to be seen in public with his roommate. Mostly, though, Sehun won’t pretend it’s not also a good excuse to check on how Chanyeol’s holding up, since he hasn’t seen him at all today.

Leaving the bathroom with another glance at the mirror and none at the chaotic state he’s left the room in, Sehun struts over to Chanyeol’s door, about to knock out the normal melody when he hears the whoosh of the vacuum cleaner start from the living room.

He almost curses to himself as he turns his beeline around and hurries down the corridor, unsurprised by the scene that he finds in front of him.

Clattering across the wooden floor in a tangle with the vacuum cord, Chanyeol is racing in circles and simultaneously table wiping, shelf dusting, and plant watering so fast it looks like he has eight hands.

It’s official, Sehun thinks to himself as he leans against the doorway with folded arms, Chanyeol has officially left Game Obsessed Procrastination and gone straight to his last stage: Frantic Cleaning Procrastination. This is the stage where Chanyeol knows that he has to do _something_ productive, but he still can’t look at his assignment, and Sehun should be grateful for how spotless their apartment always is during peak semester time, when he himself has totally given up on his delegated cleaning tasks.

But it’s been at least 48 hours since Chanyeol last slept, which Sehun knows from logging onto PUBG last night at midnight and this morning at 10 to see that Chanyeol was still online, with no chance that he was sleeping in between. So while Sehun could be an asshole and direct Chanyeol to fix his clutter in the bathroom next, he’d rather stop his hyung from overworking himself before he actually passes out.

Suddenly, Chanyeol shuts off the loud noise and drops to his knees, Sehun jumping forward at the thought that it might be too late, his arms outstretched-

But it’s just so that Chanyeol can vigorously scrub at the sticky Calpis stain Sehun left by the couch two weeks ago, and Sehun groans to himself, the sight too sad for him to stand any longer.

“Hyung, I was just about to clean that,” he clips, startling Chanyeol into toppling back onto his ass.

At the exaggerated clutch of his heaving chest and the big show Chanyeol makes of dragging himself around to face him, Sehun can’t help but crack a smile to match Chanyeol’s, his hands rested on his hips.

“You scared me,” Chanyeol pants out, bright red in the face as he fluffs up his sweaty fringe, unsticking it from his forehead.

“Take a deep breath, hyung,” Sehun insists.

Even from a few steps away, he can make out the swelling around Chanyeol’s eyes when he takes his glasses off and rubs his lenses on the hem of his purple hoodie.

Putting them back on, Chanyeol looks up at Sehun for the first time, squinting for a second before his face softens and his mouth falls open in an _oh._

“You’re- going out,” Chanyeol states with a blank once-over of Sehun, who checks his outfit again to make sure nothing’s out of place.

“Yeah, it’s just some dorm party,” Sehun brushes off, nonchalant as he redoes his French tuck and pulls his cuffed jeans up to show more ankle.

“I thought you were sick of dorm parties,” Chanyeol states, slowly lifting his weight to stand up, the sleep deprivation obvious in the effort that it takes him.

“Well, try telling that to Baekhyun and Jongdae. Even though they ditched me, anyway,” Sehun huffs to his turned back, not expecting any reaction to the complaints about his best friends, many of which he’s dumped on a patient Chanyeol after incidents like this.

Sure enough, Chanyeol just hunches over the coffee table again, wiping in weaker motions that make Sehun sigh. His roommate looks way worse than the night before, when he could still manage to joke around with Sehun over a dinner of undercooked ramen and roughly chopped cabbage.

“Well, have fun,” Chanyeol says tiredly, and Sehun knows he should take that as his cue to leave, but he’s not giving up yet.

“Have you eaten, hyung?” Sehun asks, tilting his head to see Chanyeol stop and still for a moment, as if he can’t remember.

“Uh... Not really,” he mutters, before going back to rubbing the same spot in mindless circles. “Have you?”

“No, but I’m starving,” Sehun lies. In reality, he’s still full from the protein shake he had before he got ready, and he wouldn’t normally eat before getting tipsy. But he knows that Chanyeol will go hungry, otherwise, and slides over to perch on the armrest of the couch, legs crossing. “Should we get Jjimhan takeaway for dinner? It’s been ages since we split a snow cheese chicken.”

“Don’t you have to go now?” Chanyeol asks, eyes hiding behind his mop of black hair.

“Hyung, you know that it’s always best to be fashionably late,” Sehun jokes, and he’s slightly disappointed when he doesn’t even get a hint of a smile.

“You can stop by Jjimhan on the way,” Chanyeol says bluntly, still not looking up at him. “I’ll figure something out here.”

“I doubt that,” Sehun deadpans. “I’d rather we get something together, hyung.” At the lack of reaction, Sehun scratches at the back of his head, remembering that he still has to style his hair too- crap. He needs to just hurry up and ask, but how is he meant to bring this up casually?

“Actually, I was wondering, um.” _God, why is this so hard?_ Sehun thinks, before he chastises himself. It isn't like him to be awkward, anymore, since training himself out of the habit, and besides, this is just Chanyeol, the one person who Sehun doesn't have to worry about judging him, and who's bound to say no, anyway, so this offer is just out of courtesy. “If you needed a break from-” Sehun gestures vaguely around the room, unable to stop his face from heating up because he knows that his hyung's looking at him now. “Cleaning and being stuck home, if… You can say no, but- did you want to come to the party with me, or-”

“Yes!” Chanyeol blurts out, Sehun whipping his head to stare at him and his beaming rows of teeth.

“Wait, really?” Sehun asks, shocked.

“Yes, I’ll come!” Chanyeol rushes out, already leaping onto his feet and hauling all his cleaning supplies to the kitchen. “When are we leaving!” he calls back to a still-processing Sehun.

_Has his hyung officially lost it?_

“Uh, don’t worry about that. But hyung, isn’t your-” At the loud crash he hears, Sehun doesn’t bother finishing that question, knowing better than to bring up any assignment that’s causing Chanyeol grief.

Besides, in some crazy way, Chanyeol always manages to slap together something worth at least a credit in the last few hours before it’s due, leaving Sehun to wonder why he keeps spending the week leading up to any deadline being so worried about his hyung.

“- so what should I wear?” Chanyeol asks breathlessly, just having hurtled out of the kitchen to stand in front of Sehun.

Looking up and down at Chanyeol’s unkempt appearance, with his lopsided glasses, oversized hoodie and mismatched track pants, Sehun knows that there’s a lot of work to do in a short amount of time.

“I’ll just lend you my clothes, hyung,” Sehun states, not wanting to deal with Chanyeol’s boring and unflattering wardrobe.

“Okay- awesome-”

“But go shower first,” Sehun instructs, and Chanyeol throws him a thumbs up in his redirected scurry to the bathroom.

When the door slams shut, Sehun shakes his head with a bemused grin, wondering what he’s signed himself up for, tonight.

 

**🟊**

 

As he waits for Chanyeol to finish getting changed, Sehun lounges out on his bed, long legs stretched out to the end of the mattress, resting over the layer of clothing items he’d just pulled out.

It took Sehun digging through the giant mountain that he’s stuffed into his tiny closet for him to find the brown cable-knit sweater he had in mind. Pairing that with Chanyeol’s only white business shirt and Sehun’s light-wash skinny jeans, Sehun reckons it’ll be the perfect balance between his smarter style and Chanyeol’s need to feel comfy.

Flicking through Chanyeol’s Instagram now, it's mostly made up of random objects and video snippets of his hyung's self-composed love songs, which Sehun tends to avoid listening to those because they leave him feeling oddly uncomfortable, probably from how intimate the lyrics always are. Scattered amongst those, though, the only photos of Chanyeol show him in the same three hoodies that Sehun has seen him wear to death, even in the heat of summer, and he smirks to himself.

Of course, he knows Chanyeol doesn’t care about how he dresses, and while Sehun likes that quality about him, he reckons it’ll be good for Chanyeol to expand his clothing options, to show off that confidence Sehun knows his hyung has in his looks that he loves to brag about.

Already able to hear Chanyeol shuffling behind the paper-thin wall before he’s knocked, Sehun calls him in, keen to see his work-

But when the door swings open and Chanyeol steps through, Sehun only halfway to sitting up, he’s barely done a once-over of the outfit before he locks on Chanyeol’s unframed eyes and his stomach plunges low, leaving him frozen.

“I look good, right?” Chanyeol asks, an excited grin on his face as he runs a hand through his thick hair, damp curls bouncing back into place.

“Uh-” Sehun pauses, the word having caught around the sudden lump in his throat that he has to clear. “Yeah- you look... Great.”

“You don’t sound very convincing,” Chanyeol says, his face quickly pulling into a concerned frown. “Should I change-”

“No! No, it’s good,” Sehun insists, scrambling to cover up his previous falter, hand coming up to rub at his sore eyes. “I’m sorry, I just-” _Fuck-_ he’s got makeup on his fingers now , his contacts irritated as he blinks hurriedly and wipes the color off on his jeans. “Um- I was just... I’ve never seen you without glasses, that’s all.”

“Is it bad?” Chanyeol checks, and Sehun can only shake his head, hoping that’ll clear it.

“No, I just got surprised- in a good way,” Sehun assures, the breath still knocked out of him too much to sound genuine. “Um, turn around for me.”

With his head hung in defeat, Chanyeol fumbles around in a slow circle, and Sehun tries to use the relief of breaking eye contact to collect himself and put on a happy face, shocked at his own reaction, too.

It’s not that Sehun had thought Chanyeol was unattractive before- actually, he’s always been the first to say he thinks his hyung has nice features. But Chanyeol has _never_ dressed to show them off before, and now, his broad shoulders are emphasized by the well-fitted jumper, while his long legs and slim ass are being tightly hugged in the light blue denim.

It’s just more than Sehun had been anticipating, and after getting too used to being the most good-looking guy in the room, he can’t help but feel envious, all the way down to the pit of his chest. But Sehun shouldn’t be letting that bitter insecurity show, not when he’s meant to be a supportive friend to his hyung.

“Are you sure it’s alright?” Chanyeol checks, and Sehun has to rip his stare away from Chanyeol’s biceps, swallowing thickly.

“Yeah, you uh- just need to fix the sleeves, hyung,” Sehun points out.

Straight away, Chanyeol brings his arms up to look at how his shirt cuffs are sticking out, trying to tuck them under the jumper.

“Wait, I’ll do it,” Sehun murmurs, getting up and crossing the few steps to stand eye-level with him.

Too aware that they don’t usually touch, Sehun can’t help but feel uncomfortably flushed this close to his roommate, heart thumping against his ribs as he takes Chanyeol’s arm into his hands, trying to avoid even a brush of skin contact.

With oddly unsteady fingers, Sehun does up the small buttons before he pulls the woollen hem further down, then rolling both layers up twice to reveal more muscle- and how is it fair that Chanyeol’s forearms still have veins when his working out phase ended six months ago?

“Better?” Chanyeol asks, flexing his wrists when both sides are done.

Having taken a large step back, Sehun can’t help but miss his normal sweater paws, wishing he could go back in time and tell Chanyeol to just wear a hoodie.

“Perfect,” he says through a stiff smile.

 

**🟊**

 

Even arriving after one hour and a pile of fried chicken that Sehun’s sure will make him break out later, there still isn’t enough happening to call the small get-together of people sitting on the couches or milling around the kitchen a party.

Taeil’s place is one of the bigger dorms, the kind that have four bedrooms and two guys in each, which Sehun knew would have driven him crazy, so he didn’t even bother applying for this residence. He guesses that the upside is the fifth-floor balcony and the larger common area, that half their business course have crashed overnight in by now. Plus, there’s also the decently-sized TV and sound system that they’re normally blasting K-R&B from, which most guests are currently watching Taeil play Fortnite on.

With Chanyeol trailing behind, Sehun flicks casual greetings to the majority of people that he recognizes, all the normal crowd of party-goers from first-year. Some of them, he wouldn’t mind catching up with later, but no one is interesting enough to draw him away from his beeline to the countertop that’s littered with plastic cups and half-emptied bottles.

Since he’s already tempted to leave soon, Sehun figures he might as well make use of the free alcohol, even if it is the cheap stuff, and try to get into the party spirit in case the mood picks up.

But first, he walks around Youngho to open up the fridge, getting an irritating pat on the back as he and his girlfriend clear out of the kitchen. Already knowing that the shelves will be fully stocked up, Sehun rips a can of Cass beer out from the cardboard pack.

“Here, hyung,” Sehun insists, and Chanyeol startles, looking back at him and the offered drink with wide eyes.

To Chanyeol’s quiet thanks and the shaky hands that take the can, Sehun has to hold back a light chuckle. It’s funny because Chanyeol looks the part- better than any of the people here, actually- but his facial expression is too concerned, his every move noticeably jumpy. From the second they walked through the door, his hyung has been just as uncomfortable as Sehun would have expected, and when Sehun steps over to pour himself a soju shot into a probably-used glass, Chanyeol shuffles after him like a lost puppy.

“Cheers,” Sehun says with a smirk, tapping his shot to Chanyeol’s beer. “Try and loosen up a bit, hyung.”

Head tipped back, Sehun downs the liquid quick, the familiar burn hitting the back of his throat when he puts the glass back down, loosening up now that he's finally in his element. Huffing out hot air, Sehun’s about to grin at Chanyeol when an empty metal can gets crumpled flat next to his hand.

“Wow- that was fast,” Sehun laughs out, shocked as he watches Chanyeol wipe his mouth with a grimace, nothing like how he’d slowly sipped the same brand of beer with dinner.

“Agh, I haven’t done that in ages,” Chanyeol hisses out, then clearing his throat as he straightens up.

“Don’t worry, you’ve still got it, hyung,” Sehun assures, then reaching for two taller glasses. “Let me make us bomb shots,” he insists, just for the long groan that Chanyeol lets out. “It’s a tradition, here.”

Sehun’s not even lying about that part, though normally the drinking contests are saved for the heights of these dorm parties, with a whole crowd watching and cheering on. Right now, it's just him and Chanyeol hanging around the kitchen, but this is a good way to get them both drunk faster, because Sehun doesn’t feel even the slightest buzz with his full stomach.

“First one to finish wins,” Sehun states as he cracks open and sloshes whole cans of beer into the glasses, knowing that that’s bound to spark Chanyeol’s competitive streak.

“Okay, you’re on,” Chanyeol agrees, way too easily. “But the loser has to clean up the mess you left in the bathroom.”

“What mess?” Sehun asks, feigning innocence. Except when he meets the cheeky beam on Chanyeol’s face, that it feels like Sehun hasn’t seen in weeks, he can’t help but break out in a smile, too.

After pouring roughly the same amount of soju in, Sehun lifts his glass up to clink against Chanyeol’s, careful so that the froth doesn’t spill over.

There’s only a few people who have out-drunk Sehun, and knowing that his hyung hardly has alcohol, he’s feeling more than confident- almost a little bit guilty- as he weaves his arm around Chanyeol’s.

“Part of the tradition, hyung,” Sehun says to the brief hesitance that flashes across Chanyeol’s expression, because if it weren’t, Sehun would be too sober to initiate this much skinship. “You ready? One, two, three,” he counts before they raise their drinks to their mouths.

Elbows locking tight together, Sehun immediately regrets how much soju he put in when the fire shoots straight up his mouth and nose, even stinging at his scrunched eyes. But he forces himself to swallow down gulp after gulp before his gag reflex can catch up, neck craning back so far that his muscles ache and his throat wants to clamp shut.

He’s holding out for the end, glass almost thrown the whole way back when Sehun feels Chanyeol detach from him first, and he breaks free from his own drink with a spluttered cough.

“- holy shit! Did you guys see that?” Sehun hears exclaimed over his own sharp breaths, blinking the water from his vision until he can make out Taeil jumping over to them and the few people watching from the couches. “Our own champion defeated-”

Turning to his hyung, Sehun can see that he’s bright red in the face and choking on air, but too smug to keep the grin off his face.

“Where did you learn that?” Sehun has to know, stuck between feeling impressed and completely betrayed.

“Remember how- I said I was in the astronomical society second-year?” Chanyeol manages to pant out, coughing with each thump he gives his chest.

“Yeah?” Sehun asks warily, not liking where this is going-

“Well, we had to to do something to pass the drive to the observatory,” Chanyeol explains, shaking his head with a hiccuped laugh. “But then, we’d all be too drunk to find any constellations once we got there.”

Stunned into silence, Sehun can only blink as Taeil sneaks up behind them and grabs Chanyeol’s hand in a high-five, Chanyeol more than happy to introduce himself while Sehun is stuck in the ugly scenes playing through his imagination.

“- yo, Sehun, why’ve you been hiding this guy from us!?” Taeil exclaims, the punch he gives Sehun’s shoulder barely hurting compared to the rest of his body.

It’s like all that alcohol has hit his gut at once and sent it churning, hard enough to make Sehun feel like if he tries to speak he’ll be sick. But Chanyeol’s doing fine with keeping the conversation going, smiling between him and Taeil as they switch from talking about Fortnite to PUBG, Chanyeol recounting his defeats from the day before, with his arms exaggeratedly splayed out like when he’d told Sehun over dinner.

Forcing himself out of his head and back to the present, Sehun glances around and just can’t believe that this person who was hiding behind him only a minute ago, but who’s now making Taeil double over laughing and more people turn around to stare at and whisper about, is _Chanyeol._

Though maybe Sehun should have expected this, because Chanyeol's always had this magnetic aura about him, as if everything he does is completely true to himself, and that he doesn't care whether people find it boring or lame. That's why Sehun feels so comfortable around Chanyeol, because from the first week that they met, Sehun knew he could let his guard down, could give the new, exhausting cool-guy act a break. But now, the envy burns more acidic than the soju, and Sehun can’t even pretend to laugh along with the others, just wishing they could go back to when his hyung wasn’t effortlessly better at the one thing that Sehun’s tried so hard to be best at-

A tap on the shoulder has Sehun spinning around from where he’s brooding and probably glaring at Chanyeol, but he’s only disappointed when he finds himself looking down at a prettily made-up Seulgi.

“Boo,” she says through glossy lips, Seungwan beside her with a bright grin and her blonde hair tied up with a scrunchie.

“Hey-” is all Sehun can force out before he clears his throat. Unclenching his hands from fists, he rests one on the countertop casually, then putting on a thin-lipped smile. “You guys are late.”

“Or you're earlier than normal,” Seulgi teases, and Sehun just rubs at his temples, the action making him more nauseous rather than relieving the pressure built up there.

“It helps when you don't have to wait for two little divas to get ready,” Sehun brushes off, not collected enough for the joke to land smoothly.

“So, no Baekhyun-oppa and Jongdae-oppa?” Seulgi asks, her black waves falling over the shoulder of her plaid cardigan as she leans over to make herself a drink, reminding Sehun to do the same.

“Nope, not tonight,” Sehun mutters, almost regretful about it, his hands unsteady as he grabs for the nearest open soju bottle.

“Woah, aren’t you going to mix that with anything?” Seulgi jokes as Sehun shakes up the almost-litre left of the drink, her laugh lost under Chanyeol’s gratingly loud one, and Sehun takes in a deep breath, his teeth gritted with new determination.

Pulling himself together, he straightens up and flashes Seulgi a lopsided smirk, assuring her, “Don’t worry, I can handle it.”

But just as Sehun’s raised the glass past his lips, Chanyeol slaps him on the back in another fit of cackles, almost making him spit his mouthful out.

Stifling a cough, Sehun ignores his hyung’s attempt to get him in on the joke, and instead takes another huge gulp before the first one has cooled in his throat. With his eyes squeezed tightly shut, he’s not stopping until he’s finished this whole drink as fast as possible, needing to turn this around.

He’s starting to become numb to the worst of the sharpness, the soju only washing down his throat hot and smooth with each swallow, down to his still-prickling stomach. Spurred on by all the voices yelling around him, with Taeil egging him on, Seulgi insisting that he slow down, and Chanyeol whooping and clapping the loudest, Sehun can feel his pride growing from having all the attention back on him.

After chucking the last of it back, Sehun exhales harshly and slams the bottle back onto the counter, making the crowd that had built around him all burst into awed cheers as he nonchalantly stretches his neck from side to side, failing to hold back a grin when he meets Chanyeol’s beaming one next to him.

“Shit, you’ve still got it!” Taeil exclaims as he hangs off of Sehun’s other shoulder. “The crowned champion is back, everyone!”

“Come on, Taeil, don’t encourage him,” Seulgi clips with a swat at Taeil, even though she’s smiling along, too. “Sehun’s going to be sick at this rate!”

“Nah, it’s gonna take way more than that! I bet you could do that all again, man,” he insists, and Sehun’s about to laugh him off when he latches onto a smaller voice underneath all of the others, the innocent question amplifying ten-fold in his ears.

“- hi, have we met before? I’m Seungwan-”

Instantly, Sehun whips towards it, victory forgotten as he fixates on the new flirty tilt to Seungwan’s smile and the way she’s batting her eyelashes up at-

“Oh! Sorry, I’m Chanyeol, nice to meet you-”

Without giving her the chance to reply, Sehun’s already grabbed firmly onto Chanyeol’s wrist, his head pounding and vision spotting red so he can’t process what the hell he’s doing.

“Excuse us-” Sehun isn’t sure if he spits out as he shoves their way through the hoard of people, towing Chanyeol out in a blind burst of adrenaline.

His balance is off-centred, steps barely keeping up with his racing heart when he stalks them both to the sliding balcony doors, then crashing them open too forcefully.

Straight away, a freezing gust of air hits him in the face, stopping him dead in his tracks with a second of realization.

“Wow, it’s so cold out here,” Chanyeol says in amazement, squeezing around Sehun and almost stumbling up to the metal railing.

Slowly, blinking past the bitter wind in his itchy eyes, Sehun pulls the door shut on all the chatter he can now hear behind them, not daring to look through the window at how everyone reacted to his sudden storming off.

_Fuck, what is wrong with him, today?_

Left to breathe out grey puffs of smoke, Sehun’s temples ache as he takes the spot next to Chanyeol, who’s going on about how he can’t see any stars from here. The only view in the navy blue night is of the back of the next building over, with the distant sounds of Seoul traffic around them, and Sehun shoves his icy fingers into the thinly-lined pockets of his jacket.

With his thoughts swimming in thick liquid, he’s struggling to replay those last few moments between Seungwan and Chanyeol, before his blind impulse took over everything else.

But- Sehun _had_ to do that, right? There’s got to be an unwritten rule about him keeping other guys away from Seulgi and Seungwan, because Baekhyun and Jongdae liked them first.

 _But they’re off sleeping with other girls, anyway,_ his brain counters with stark clarity, and he knows that the excuse doesn’t explain his reactions from before.

With a long sigh, Sehun hangs his head, his chest feeling uncomfortably tight.

What is happening to him? This whole situation is just a painful reminder of his younger self, of the old envies and insecurities he was once consumed with, that he’s been trying to outgrow since he moved to this new city, apparently without as much success as he'd thought-

“- Sehunnie~”

“Huh-” Sehun blurts out, startled into looking over at Chanyeol, who’s leaning on the railing with his cheek pressed to his palm.

“What’s wrong?” Chanyeol asks, frowning up at him innocently.

“No- nothing, I just…” Sehun trails off, not knowing what to say with his thoughts all scattered.

Even in the dark, he can see how flushed Chanyeol’s face is, the lamp of the next balcony over glistening in his wide eyes, and Sehun can’t stay mad when it’s only the two of them, the stress built up inside him now a solid ball of guilt in the pit of his stomach.

Sucking in a sharp breath of the leftover wintry air, Sehun just wants to apologize and lighten his conscious, starting with an unsure, “I’m sorry, hyung... For dragging you out here and-”

“No, I like it!” Chanyeol’s quick to assure, bolting up to Sehun’s surprise. “It was so stuffy inside, but this is way better- and it’s kind of cold, but this jumper is super cozy and soft, and did you see how many people were there-” As his hyung rambles on without pausing to breathe, Sehun can’t help but let a chuckle bubble out of him, only making Chanyeol’s grin more dopey. “- and I like that it’s only us outside, and wow- I think I’m drunk- are you drunk? You’re acting the same as you always do-”

“I’m just tipsy,” Sehun says truthfully. Out here in the sobering cold, away from that suffocating room, he only feels the familiar tingle running through his body and the soft cushioning of his now-calmer brain.

“Wow, you can handle a lot of soju!” Chanyeol enthuses, Sehun shrugging it off, though he does feel a bit smug at the compliment. “You’ve had that whole bottle, plus our drinks- and then that shot, and that beer at dinner-”

“Oh, shit,” Sehun groans out, reminded of how much more he’s had tonight than he’d planned to. Based on experience, the alcohol's bound to overtake him soon and send him straight into his drunker stages, where the careful hold he keeps on his image is taken over by the urge to flirt and be touchy, not to mention the awful stomachache he’ll be stuck with when he fails to get to sleep. “-and I was meant to go to the gym early tomorrow-”

“What- no you’re not!” Chanyeol protests, before pointing at Sehun accusingly. “We’re staying out all night!”

“Are we?” Sehun laughs out, shocked by Chanyeol’s reaction once again.

“Of course- I have to show you how good I am at partying!” Chanyeol insists, his determined expression too childish with his burning cheeks and ears for Sehun to take seriously.

“Yeah, I don’t think so, hyung,” Sehun deadpans, making Chanyeol’s mouth drop open to argue before he interrupts him. “We have to get you to bed, soon, so you can finally have a proper rest-”

“But I’m not even tired!” Chanyeol whines through a pout, crossing his arms away from Sehun like a little kid.

“Well, we can stay out later next time,” Sehun says off-handedly, smiling over the balcony and not expecting to be barged into so hard that he stumbles a step over.

“Really?” Chanyeol asks, his giant grin up so close that it’s all Sehun can see through his tunnel vision.

“Yeah, why not-” he hesitates over, and Chanyeol’s arms shoot up in the air with a victory cry.

As his hyung sways around, Sehun swears that he even starts humming the chorus of _We Are The Champions,_ blinking through the fuzzy dark in disbelief.

“I don’t get it, do you love partying _that_ much?” Sehun demands, not enough control over his tongue to hold back his judgemental tone.

“Oh yeah, I’m coming to all of yours now~” Chanyeol sing-songs, still prancing around in a dance that makes Sehun dizzy.

“But why?” he asks, having to shake his clogged head to try and keep up, only left more motion-sick. “Even I don't want to be here-”

“I just hate when you’re out at parties,” Chanyeol sighs out, his motions stopped all of a sudden to slump onto the railing dramatically.

“What-” By this point, Sehun’s not sure if the ringing in his ears is too loud to hear Chanyeol properly, or if he’s just too far behind in the conversation to catch up. “What did you say, hyung?”

But Chanyeol only lets out a longer, sadder exhale of mist, facing down at the ground five storeys below them so Sehun can’t meet his gaze, left more lost than ever.

“Hyung?” Sehun tries, the cement floor tipping sideways when he takes a step up to him and has a better look at Chanyeol's drooping face. “Hey, where did all your energy go?” he prompts, lightly nudging him.

With Chanyeol's chin smushed into his forearms, his hyung says something muffled back, though all Sehun can piece together is, “- feel sick... Waiting- for you to come back-”

“But I’m right here, hyung,” Sehun points out, laying a stiff hand on Chanyeol’s back, the jumper warm under the circles he rubs. “What’re you saying? Are you gonna be sick?”

“Ugh- 'm so drunk,” Chanyeol grunts out over the balcony, then flopping onto his cheek to stare up at Sehun with glassy eyes. The two of them are so close that the puffs of smoke from their mouths almost meet in the middle, before evaporating in the wind, everything else becoming blurry though the film of fog. “‘M saying stupid things.”

“It’s okay,” Sehun assures, leaning his body against the railing and sinking deeper into the touch. “Tell me more stupid things, hyung.”

“You smell nice,” Chanyeol mutters without hesitation, and Sehun breaks out in a smile, making a barely-weighted mental note to use his _Fierce_ cologne more.

“What else, hyung?  I’ll take more compliments,” Sehun teases, his heart rate picking up to warm his cold-bitten cheeks.

“There’s too many,” Chanyeol moans out, then propping himself onto an elbow with what Sehun can almost make out as awe. “You’re just... so cool- how do you do it?”

“Me? No way, you’re-” Sehun has to stop and laugh at himself, now, the full-bodied chuckle shaking from his chest without even a hint of sourness. “Hyung, you’re even cooler! Everyone was so into you back there.”

“Yeah, except you-”

“Huh-”

“No- nothing!” Chanyeol cuts in before Sehun’s even processed the last thing he said, the echo of it already drowned out by Chanyeol stumbling over all of his next words. “Oh god, I’m _really_ drunk- what am I doing-”

“Hey, it’s okay, hyung-” Sehun tries to insist as Chanyeol’s buries his hands into his soft hair.

“- said too much, idiot- “ he’s murmuring under white breaths, Sehun bent closer to catch whatever he can, holding onto Chanyeol’s sturdy forearm. “- no chance, anyway- that girl was way prettier than you-”

“Wait, _Seungwan?”_ Sehun demands, instantly flaring red, nails digging in tight. “You can’t-”

“No, not her,” Chanyeol groans. “The one with the- black hair who likes you.”

Still seized up, Sehun has to slowly unclench his frozen fingers from around Chanyeol’s skin as if nothing happened, drawing in a shaky breath and wincing from how it pokes icicles through his lungs.

“Right- you mean Seulgi,” Sehun struggles to say through chattering teeth, before he shakes his heavy head. “She doesn’t like me like that.”

“It’s so obvious,” Chanyeol sighs out, as Sehun’s heart is stuck pounding painfully hard, making him wince.

“I’d already know if she liked me,” he dismisses, about to turn away when Chanyeol speaks.

“But you wouldn’t,” he says, his voice suddenly sober. Twisting up to look at Sehun, there’s something oddly serious to Chanyeol’s expression that stabs deep through Sehun’s chest, leaving him colder than before. “Aren't you happy? Do you like her?”

Pinned under his intense gaze, Sehun only stares until his contacts blur from how close they are, brain too overwhelmed to pull together a single thought, and his dry mouth speaks for him automatically.

“No, I don’t,” Sehun hears himself say.

In the silence that follows, with Sehun’s breath held for the reaction, Chanyeol’s glistening eyes linger for one moment longer, before he turns away and releases a long stream of smoke.

“Good.”

“What do you mean?” Sehun asks. When Chanyeol doesn’t answer, he blurts out point blank and in disgust, "Do _you_ like Seulgi?"

“Ha, as if,” Chanyeol huffs out, chuckling to a joke that Sehun’s absent thoughts don’t get.

“Then why is it good?” he demands, his frustration only building as Chanyeol just grins off into the distance. “Hyung?” he insists, the hand on Chanyeol’s back stretched around to pinch him in the sides.

“Ow- I can’t tell you,” Chanyeol grits out through hiccuped laughs, trying to wriggle out of Sehun’s reach, who just trips over their tangled feet to prod him more.

“Why not?” Sehun argues, other hands going for Chanyeol’s neck to cage his body in. “Stop being so mysterious, hyung!”

“It’s a secret,” Chanyeol argues, wide grin breathing hot air over Sehun’s burning cheeks as he struggles against him.

“But I hate secrets,” Sehun argues back, voice whingeing with the desperate need to know. “You have to tell me!”

“I- no, I can’t,” Chanyeol croaks out, quickly running out of the energy to fight back.

“Why why why?” Sehun pressures, attacking wherever his fingers can reach. “Hyung~ please!"

“Agh, don’t say it like that,” Chanyeol groans, his face scrunching up in pain.

“Chanyeollie-hyung~” Sehun coos in his best baby voice, arms wrapping around Chanyeol and head perching on his tensed shoulder.

“But you- you don’t wanna know-” Chanyeol weakly argues, neck pulling away from Sehun with a tired grimace.

“Of course I do! Why wouldn’t I, hyung?” Sehun asks as he sinks all his weight into Chanyeol's firm body, letting himself be enveloped in the warmth.

“’cause it messes up- everything-”

“No, it doesn’t-” Sehun tries to interrupt, but Chanyeol’s limply swaying in his arms now, muttering under his breath.

“‘Nd it’s so dumb 'nd stupid of me-”

“There's no way it's that bad,” Sehun assures over him, their foreheads knocking and staying pressed together.

“‘Nd I’ve tried to get over it, but... I just-"

For one second, Chanyeol blinks opens his droopy eyes, the defeat in his expression starkly clear up this close.

“... You just?” Sehun prompts when Chanyeol's eyes fall closed, again, hanging onto each slurred word.

Sehun's pulse is hammering in his ears deafeningly loud, drowning out the sliding of a glass door behind them and the amplified noises from inside, everything slowed so that it's only the two of them and what Chanyeol breathes out next-

“I just really like you."

And before he's even had a chance to react, the whole party comes crashing back down on Sehun, grating laughter and harsh hands yanking him and Chanyeol apart, dragging him back to reality.

But for the rest of the night that grinds by, no matter how many shots he downs to try and get back to being drunk, Sehun's heart is still frozen in time, replaying that one moment over and over on an endless loop, and he has no idea what to do.

 

 


	2. Bohemian Rhapsody

A grating buzz pulls Sehun out of the depths of a dreamless sleep, waking into a body that’s as heavy and tender as if it’d been crushed by a tonne of bricks.

Letting out a splintered groan, he slowly rolls onto his side, towards the persisting noise, and shoves the blanket off his clammy, overheated chest. As close as he is to shutting his phone off and passing back out, not wanting to be in his own body right now, Sehun’s throat has woken up enough to sear with thirst, his bladder ready to explode, and his skin feels too disgusting to keep lying in his own sweat. 

It takes all of his energy to pull himself into a sitting position, first getting on his elbows and pushing himself up as far as he can before he hunches over the edge of the bed. Rubbing over his cheeks, the layer of makeup still thick  there, Sehun forces himself to take in a deep gulp of warm air to try and ease his nausea, before he grabs blindly at his bedside desk until he yanks his phone from the charging cord.

Forcing his eyes open, the light of his screen burns into his retinas, and of course, when he’s blinked enough of the sting away, he sees that the notifications are coming from the group chat with his hyungs. After silencing the device, he can only squint at the KKTalk pop-ups on his lock screen that keep replacing themselves, none of them really registering. 

_Baekhyun: yah answer us!!_

_Baekhyun: hELLOOOO??_

_Baekhyun: are you dead or something??_

_Jongdae: Too many love shots last night? ;)_

_Baekhyun: haHAHAHAHHAAHAH GOOD ONE DAE_

_Baekhyun: but seriously hunnie you better be ready to drink again tonight!!_

_Baekhyun: we’ll get double the soju just for you baby boyyyy_

The flashing memory of way too many drinks is enough to make Sehun’s head throb, so he mutes and swipes their chat away, glimpsing a message underneath from Taeil, asking if he got home safe, before he chucks his phone behind him. 

 _God, what happened last night?_ Sehun thinks to himself, rubbing over his sore eyes, his insides churning as if he hadn’t slept at all. This has to be the worst hangover he’s had in a long time, and he has no idea how he even managed to get back to his own bed with how wasted he got after-

_I just really like you-_

Eyes shot straight back open, Sehun is knocked breathless by a memory of Chanyeol and his hopelessly affectionate expression hovering above him, burning red against the blurry darkness of the room when Sehun tries to blink it away.

Slowly sinking backwards, he curls into a ball on the mattress, hand over his jump-started heart that’s pounding painfully hard, torn up by the stark image, though he has no idea how it came to him. 

“Fuck,” he croaks out, his voice breaking in two, no saliva to coat the dryness of his mouth. 

This sudden pain is a hundred times worse than what he woke up with, making Sehun wish he hadn’t remembered at all, and now, he gets why the harsh fire from a bottle of soju sounded way more appealing last night. 

As he scrambles for his phone, now keen on his friends’ plan for the night, a muffled sound makes him stop dead, lungs freezing. Behind his paper-thin wall, soft footsteps pad down the corridor, towards the bathroom door, and it’s not until Sehun’s sure he heard it shut that he exhales a sharp gust of air. 

Great- now that rules out most of his possibilities, since he’s no longer willing to risk sneaking out of the apartment if he knows Chanyeol is up. He quickly shakes away his next thought of asking Baekhyun and Jongdae to come over and then running out with them, even if he’d love the distraction of the two idiot friends he’d planned to be mad at today. But it wouldn’t work- Sehun already knows that they’ll be full of questions that he doesn’t want to answer, not needing to give them any more reasons to make fun of Chanyeol.

No, he can’t leave unless Chanyeol’s gone out, first, and Sehun’s already claustrophobic at the thought of being stuck in his tiny room with no windows and his space heater on all day, the pounding in his temples bad enough to make him hiss. 

Clicking his lamp on, he scours around the dimly lit room to make out the piles of clothing on the floor that he’s got no plans of cleaning, grabbing his barely-worn glasses off the desk to see what other supplies he’s got. The only food to eat is some dried rice that’s stuck to the bottom of the dirty bowls on his desk, and maybe he can piss in that empty Calpis bottle by the bin-

Wait a second. 

What the _hell_ is he thinking? There’s no way he’s doing any of that!

This has to be the old Sehun talking, the loser that would spend every lunch hiding in his high school library, or who ran to his room the moment he got home and would refuse to come out. This is the same coward that would rather isolate himself from the world than deal with anything uncomfortable, and Sehun swore to himself that he was done with that person when he moved out. 

Now, he’s got an image to uphold, of the cool and collected university student who has the confidence to deal with any situation maturely, Sehun reminds himself, straightening his posture with new determination. That’s how he’s turned down the girls in class or the guys who wanted a second meeting, giving them the gentle, ‘I’m flattered, but I’m just not interested in dating anyone at the moment’ speech, and it’s never ended badly for him. 

Or at least, it doesn’t when Sehun runs the scene through his racing brain and gets every line out smoothly. He’ll say that he likes- he _enjoys_ having Chanyeol as his roommate, that things don’t have to change between them, and that anyone would be lucky to… Actually, Sehun won’t say that last part, he’ll just focus on how he wants things to stay the same.

With that decided, he hauls himself up way too fast, the action making his head spin. Not waiting until the dizziness fades, Sehun pockets his phone, half-swaying as he trudges across the cluttered floor, but it’s better than sitting still and letting his mind agonize over all the different possibilities. 

If he did for even a moment longer, he knows that the image of Chanyeol reacting badly would stop him from doing anything at all, and that he couldn’t handle the idea of hurting his hyung in even the smallest way, or of their relationship being ruined by this.

By his door, Sehun grabs up a beige long sleeve shirt that he buttons with shaky fingers, the tight fabric making it somehow harder to breathe than it was before, as he tucks it into the jeans he’s still wearing from last night. He catches a brief glimpse of his reflection in the hanging mirror, of his ugly glasses, the black smudges under his swollen eyes, and the washed-out tinge to the small bumps forming in his skin, before pushing forward.

Because if he stopped to fix everything wrong with his face right now, he’d be there forever, and Sehun needs to get this over with. The sooner he does, the easier it’ll be for everyone, because Chanyeol must be feeling just as stressed about it as him, and his hyung has an assignment that he needs to be focusing on today.

Softly, Sehun steps into the narrow corridor, where any other day, the unheated floors and morning draught would be bad enough to make him start to shiver. Except that every inch of is already trembling as he stares blearily at the bathroom, no sounds of running water from inside to give him an excuse to turn back to his own room. Out in the cold, all he can hear is the thumping of his own heart in his ears, that’s fighting against the berating voice in his head, trying to force him to _stop being such a coward and just do it._

Raising a stiff fist, the instant that Sehun’s made contact with the wood, he snaps his hand back, thrown straight into a whirlwind of panic. Fuck- why did he do that when he hasn’t thought any of this through- could Chanyeol have even heard him- is there enough time for Sehun to get out if he sprints down the hallway-

When the door starts to creak open, Sehun is stuck frozen in place, the air hitching in his lungs as he waits for the inevitable, totally unprepared for the kind of state Chanyeol might be in- 

But he’s greeted with the last thing he would have ever expected in this situation, and Chanyeol’s bright smile only widens when their eyes meet.

“Morning,” Chanyeol says, clearly amused, while Sehun’s blood is still flooded with adrenaline, legs one bad sign from making a run for it. “You’re up earlier than I expected.”

“I-” Sehun rasps out, his voice nowhere to be found, though he doesn’t know what he would have said, anyway.

“How’s the hangover going?” Chanyeol jokes, then facing away to busy himself with clearing things from the bathroom sink. 

“Uh…” Sehun clears his parched throat and takes a breath, still unable to keep up with what’s happening. “It’s- not great,” he manages to mutter out, blinking at the tiled wall to try and clear his vision.

“Yeah, you don’t look so good,” Chanyeol says with a sympathetic glance back that Sehun feels undeserving of, the nauseous pit in his stomach deepening. “Must’ve been a wild party, huh?”

“I- I guess it was-” he mumbles unsurely, mind having gone completely blank on everything he was planning to say.

With a light chuckle, Chanyeol starts packing all of Sehun’s makeup brushes back into his bag, Sehun suddenly remembering something that makes him only half-aware of Chanyeol saying, “Damn, I must have crashed before any of the action started-”

“I thought I was going to clean that stuff up,” Sehun blurts out. 

At Chanyeol’s pause in movements, Sehun has the blood-draining thought that he’s done something wrong, until Chanyeol lets out another huffed laugh.

“Were you, now? Liar,” he teases, but he’s still hunched and angled away so that Sehun can’t see his expression, left to frown at Chanyeol’s black _Champion_ hoodie. “We both know you’d let it sit there for weeks. And I don’t mind doing it, anyway.”

Slowly, Sehun can sense the pieces clicking together in his brain, because he knows for a fact that Chanyeol would never let a bet slide, even if he’d lost it himself.

So- could that mean Chanyeol doesn’t remember that they made one? And if his memory stopped before then- 

Leaning into the room, Sehun peers over Chanyeol’s shoulder at his flushed reflection in the cabinet mirror, having the intention of searching his face for the proof he needs. But as Sehun’s gaze hovers over Chanyeol’s glasses and how they’ve slipped low down his nose, taking in the puffy eyes half-hidden by his curly mop of hair, down to Chanyeol’s slightly parted mouth-

Without warning, Chanyeol glances up to meet his lingering stare, and Sehun instantly flinches away, boring holes into the wall as his cheeks burn red-hot, something sharp lodging in his throat. Anyway, he doesn’t need to look at Chanyeol again to see that his hyung is less tired than he has been this whole past week, with even his cleaning calmed down, but that doesn’t prove anything, yet.

“- uh... Hyung?” Sehun starts carefully, before he hesitates over whether he should do this at all. 

There’s still something heavy balanced in the air, looming above him, and Sehun doesn’t know if he should risk tipping it over, his insides all mixed up over what to do. But he knows he has to at least ask this, so he can prove to himself that he didn’t just ignore the problem like he would once have, even though Sehun already has a guess for what answer he’ll get. 

“What... happened last night?” he finally manages to get out, and Chanyeol doesn’t miss a beat.

“Wow, did you drink that much after I left?” he laughs out, shaking his head to himself with his gaze kept down. “I’ve got no idea either. I was falling asleep after one beer, and the next thing I know, I wake up on our couch, and your friends are carrying you in because you’ve passed out.”

“Oh…” is all Sehun can say, not returning the grin Chanyeol gives him via the mirror, his thoughts too busy churning.

He guesses that it makes sense- Chanyeol’s been so on edge lately, with all the undereating and undersleeping, and he’d practically been dozing off as he talked to Sehun on the balcony, but...

Could he really have forgotten _everything?_

“Why, what’s up?” Chanyeol asks, looking over his shoulder at Sehun, who instantly stiffens. “Did I do something stupid while I was drunk?”

Lungs panging, Sehun’s pinned in place by Chanyeol’s red-rimmed eyes, and dammit- why does he look so good this morning? But with his heart hammering against his ribs, Sehun can compose himself just enough to try and lie.

“No, nothing like that, hyung,” he says thickly, not even sounding convinced himself, and for a second, he swears that he sees Chanyeol’s smile twitch. 

But then Chanyeol simply nods, before facing away to rub circles over the mirror, his expression blurring in the water-streaked glass.

Sehun doesn’t let himself relax just yet, though, not when his gut still feels unsettled, unable to tell if this is Chanyeol telling the truth, or if his hyung really did slip up in his act. Sehun’s head pounds, trying to replay the exact expression that just flashed over Chanyeol’s face, while also demanding himself why he’s still trying to reach for things when he’s been given the chance to drop it- 

He’s so busy arguing in his head that he misses the words that have Chanyeol turning back to him expectantly, Sehun starting when he notices.

“What?” he asks blankly, and he can tell that Chanyeol raises his eyebrows behind his unruly fringe.

“I said, I’m impressed you didn’t throw up last night,” Chanyeol repeats, leaning calmly against the sink. 

“Oh, I- never vomit,” Sehun dismisses, and because of the way Chanyeol’s pink cheeks stretch with a disbelieving grin, he adds on, “It’s true- ask anyone in my degree.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it is,” Chanyeol agrees as he folds his arms across his chest. “I just don’t think you can use that as an excuse for binge drinking all that- however much soju you had.”

“Hey,” Sehun huffs out, feeling a smile tug at his lips for the first time that morning. It doesn’t help the unnerved restlessness inside him, but with Chanyeol teasing him like this, Sehun can pretend to be normal as well, at least until he really feels that way. “As if I’d listen to you talking about healthy habits, hyung,” he counters smoothly.

“Oh, just you wait,” Chanyeol states, finger pointed at Sehun with determination. “I’m gonna have that assignment finished by tonight.”

“Really?” Sehun asks, surprised that Chanyeol’s even willing to bring it up, but taking the chance to give him a much-needed push. “Then shouldn’t you be starting it now-”

“Y’know, I was _just_ about to do that, actually,” Chanyeol cuts off, his higher pitch giving away the lie, and Sehun matches his crossed arms, tucking his frozen fingers into his armpits.

“Well, c’mon, hyung. Get to it,” he challenges, waiting for Chanyeol to make a move. 

Chanyeol’s mouth does open to argue, but at the stern face Sehun gives him, he instead lets out a defeated sigh, hunching over and shuffling his way past Sehun, who smirks to himself.

Closely following him down the corridor, Sehun stops in the door frame of Chanyeol’s room, and any short-lived pride he felt crumbles when Chanyeol grabs his favorite cap and already-packed duffle bag off the bed.

“You’re- going out,” Sehun states, his tone coming out flat. 

“Yeah, I figure it’ll help keep me from getting distracted,” Chanyeol says simply, fitting his Bose headphones around his neck, and Sehun should agree but-

Chanyeol always does his schoolwork here, so why would he be going out today? Had he been planning this to avoid Sehun-

“I’m off,” Chanyeol states, and Sehun shuts his thoughts off there, letting Chanyeol step past him and giving him a thin smile. 

No, everything between them is fine, Sehun reminds himself as he stares after Chanyeol, then deciding to follow with careful steps, across the floor that feels covered in eggshells. 

It makes sense, though, that Sehun would still feel like this, he reasons next, when he had spent all night and this morning agonizing over what happened, and he was never able to get it off his tightened chest. 

“Hyung,” Sehun says gently, and Chanyeol turns around in the dimly lit hallway. 

“What’s up?” he asks, his expression unreadable, though Sehun tries to and fails.

“Uh- good luck, today,” he murmurs, because even with all the other emotions bubbling inside Sehun, there’s a heavy guilt weighing down the rest, and Sehun tries to make his next words sound as sincere as possible to lighten that. “Try not to stress too much about it being perfect, okay? You just need to get it over with.”

“Yeah, I know,” Chanyeol assures, his expression relaxing as he fixes the cap on his head. “Don’t worry about me so much, I’m meant to be the hyung.”

“It’s hard not to sometimes,” Sehun admits a little more quietly, and Chanyeol flashes a soft smile before they both keep walking towards the front.

While Chanyeol pauses to slip on his slides, Sehun turns on the thermostat in the entryway as an excuse to be near him, not ready to say goodbye yet.

“Make sure you rest today- don’t even think about going to the gym,” Chanyeol starts to lecture, and Sehun can’t help but smile at his concern. “Drink lots of water and have something for lunch soon-”

“Ew, no thanks,” Sehun cuts in, even more pleased when Chanyeol flicks him a warning look from where he’d grabbed onto the front door handle. 

“Sehun-”

“My stomach hurts too much,” he states, before sighing out sadly, “The only thing I could eat right now is hyung’s hangover soup.”

“Oh, really?” Chanyeol plays along, his face turned down as he wipes his palm over his forehead and readjusts his cap. “I’ve shown you how to make it before.”

“But it’s not the same if I do,” Sehun reasons, slightly irked when Chanyeol pulls his phone out of his pocket to check it. “Hey, maybe if you finish your assignment early enough, we can make it for dinner,” he offers, watching intently as Chanyeol starts typing a message out. 

“You won’t even be hungover by then,” Chanyeol deadpans, not looking up from the screen.

“I could be. It was a lot of soju, after all,” Sehun tries to joke, but Chanyeol doesn’t even notice, instead tucking his phone back away and swinging his bag onto the other shoulder. “Hyung?”

“- sorry, I’ve just got a lot to do- I need to get going,” Chanyeol says bluntly, all of a sudden in a rush, and Sehun’s stomach sinks embarrassingly fast. “I’ll be back tomorrow, okay?”

“Oh- yeah, that’s fine-” he tries to assure, barely getting a word in before Chanyeol’s already out the door. “Wait- who are you staying with tonight?” he demands as Chanyeol heads down the hallway, and Sehun should have expected the answer that’s called back over his shoulder- should be able to keep a hold of his reactions-

But the impact is like an instant blow to his gut, knocking any remaining air out of him so hard that he physically stumbles back a step- his reeling mind barely catching Chanyeol’s ‘see you!’ before he’s rounded the corner.

Left alone in the ringing silence, heart battering painfully hard in his throat, Sehun glares holes into the place where Chanyeol disappeared, fists balled at his sides.

Fucking _Kyungsoo,_ again- the same asshole who’s meant to be Chanyeol’s ‘best friend’ since latching onto him at the astronomy club, and who has followed him to every club since- who has hated Sehun from the first time they met for absolutely no reason, and who Sehun can’t bear the thought of Chanyeol running to after all this.

Sehun’s blood is boiling as he slams the door shut with a harsh bang, the echo resounding in his ears. He feels sick down to the core, turned inside out, like he always does when Kyungsoo’s involved, and now he definitely won’t be able to eat anything.

But standing in the quiet of the entryway, still fuming, Sehun knows he had just started feeling better and doesn’t want to be torn up about it all day, so he forces himself to listen to the stupid voice of reason in him, telling him that he doesn’t even have to see Kyungsoo. He won’t have to suffer through Kyungsoo’s jarring presence, or his glares at Sehun the second they’re in the same room, or Kyungsoo taking every opportunity to brag about his sexuality, like he’s personally mocking Sehun for not being out. 

Filling his lungs with a deep breath, Sehun slowly trudges back into the living space, the anger still simmering just below the surface of his skin, itching for a way out. Pulling his phone out for a distraction, he opens up KKTalk, expecting there to be something besides messages from his hyungs, who he doesn’t have the patience for today.

But he has no other notifications, and debates whether he should ask some course friends what they’re up to, but that group chat seems to be gone from a quick search, so Sehun shoves his phone away with an impatient huff, not wanting to waste his time. He just needs to start enjoying himself, because it’s rare that the apartment is just his on a day when he has no commitments, and this morning went way better than he’d expected, almost as if last night didn’t happen at all.

Plus, the cruel idea flashes through his mind before he can stop it- that maybe Kyungsoo only acts like that around him because he’s jealous- that Kyungsoo could have made up a contest for Chanyeol in his head, and Sehun just found out he’s been winning it all along.

A bitter smirk twitches at his lips, but it doesn’t last long as Sehun looks around the empty living space and wonders why, with all of those reasons to be happy, he still feels like shit.

 

**🟊**

 

Steam has misted up the small room as Sehun steps out of the warmth of the shower and onto the cold tiles, his legs weak from more than just his afternoon workout.

Huffing at the goosebumps that rise on his wet skin, Sehun grabs at a towel to vigorously dry his hair, still just as pent-up with stress as he was when he jumped into the bathroom straight after the gym.

It’s been over two weeks since Taeil’s party now, and Sehun had been so convinced that everything would be back to normal by this point, but it looks like he doesn’t get to forget about that night so easily, unfiltered images of Chanyeol still lingering on the edges of his mind-

Groaning into his towel, Sehun rubs it over his eyes and face to clear his thoughts, his contact lenses stinging. 

He’d kill for a good distraction and a chance to get out of the apartment, today, especially when he already knows he won’t be able to focus on studying for his upcoming mid semester tests with everything that’s going on. Or maybe it’s because he doesn’t want to face his roommate after what he just- Sehun slams that idea shut, instead trying to do a quick mental run-through of the people he usually hangs out with. But it doesn’t take long for him to cross everyone out, his stomach only twisting into impossibly worse knots as he realizes how stuck he really is, now.

Sehun noticed it the first day after the party- it was hard not to when his usual group were suddenly tiptoeing around him, everything they said either hesitant or filled with pity. But he quickly wondered if they were trying to compensate for the other people who had started actively ignoring him- like Seulgi was, so much for her having a crush on him. His two supposed ‘best friends’ were no help either, after they were the ones to drop Sehun home from Taeil’s- though they deny tucking him into bed- and they’ve been acting patronizing and giggly ever since, like they know something that Sehun doesn’t. 

It felt like the whole damn business course must have been in on the joke except him, but Sehun sucked all of it up, and walked with his chin held high through each second glance and whisper across campus, in class, at the gym, hoping it was just his imagination playing old paranoid tricks on him like in high school- until what happened yesterday at Youngho’s. 

The event is still a sharp pang in Sehun’s chest, of finally getting the dreaded confirmation that something’s gone badly wrong, but after agonizing over it all night instead of sleeping, he still doesn’t have any idea what could’ve happened at Taeil’s- if maybe he rejected Seulgi cruelly, or worse, let out a secret he couldn’t afford to. The last thing he wants to find out is what he did, though, just in case it really was that bad or irreversible.

And then, with everything else that’s going on, there’s Chanyeol, who’s the only person still acting the same around Sehun as before, because gossip never seems to reach him. If it were under any other circumstances, Sehun would be able to talk to him throughout this whole thing, would have been curled up on his desk chair last night instead of being shut in his room, alone. But somehow, Chanyeol is the one that’s driving Sehun the craziest of all, because the comfort that Sehun used to find around his hyung has been replaced with this- this awful _feeling-_ this pressure in between Sehun’s ribs that he can’t ignore, or the heat crawling under the collar of his shirt whenever Chanyeol’s around, the obsessive poring over Chanyeol’s every word, or that weighted tension always suspended in the space between them as he waits for any kind of sign that-

Shaking his head, Sehun’s hands grip onto the counter, dizzy from the circles his brain’s been running in all day, the towel dropping to the wet floor. 

This has been wearing Sehun down for so long- everything making his nerves stand on end the past two weeks, and right now, his heart refuses to slow, even after he’s tried the only two things that usually help to take the edge off. 

Staring at himself close up in the foggy mirror, he looks like just as much of a wreck as he feels, his mouth panting and cheeks red, eyes still glazed over and wet hair spiked in all directions, and it seems obvious what he’d just done in the shower.

Vision trailing further down, Sehun fights the instinct to cower and hide himself away, because he knows, objectively, that he has no need to. He’s been to the gym every single day this week, going harder than ever to burn off his extra energy and shake off the stares, and it shows in his toned arms, his biceps standing out when he flexes. Taking a step back, Sehun can see the definition of each of his abs in the reflection, the lines of muscle firm to the touch, and he wonders what Chanyeol would think if he walked in here right now and saw-

The swear word catching on the lump in his throat, Sehun has to turn away and swallow thickly, head tipped back and hands coming up to tug on his damp hair, trying to get a grip on himself.

Because for some reason, it’s like all the frustration, anxiety and loneliness, on top of the uncertainty about Chanyeol’s real feelings- all of it has gotten mixed up and turned Sehun into a horny mess these past weeks. It would be a great distraction if it didn’t make him even _more_ confused, to the point where he keeps asking himself if he should just sleep with Chanyeol to get the idea out of his system. Not that Sehun would ever hurt Chanyeol’s feelings like that, but _fuck-_  

He’s just been stuck in his brain for too long, going crazy with overthinking, and after last night, he‘s so close to hitting a breaking point- or maybe this is even it, this searing urge inside him that he has to do _something_ to take control back.

He hasn’t even processed what that something is before his body kicks into gear. 

Snatching up his gym clothes from off the towel rack, Sehun pulls up his Calvin Klein briefs and his black Adidas trackpants, leaving his chest bare. With a quick check in the mirror, he pushes his hair back, stray drops of water still slipping down his neck, and he makes sure that his pants ride low enough to show the band of his underwear, the top of his hip bones, and his smooth abdomen.

Not taking a second to catch his breath, though he does quickly grab and spray his _Fierce_ cologne, Sehun then marches out of the heated bathroom and into the hallway, where the sound of Chanyeol strumming the intro of Bohemian Rhapsody on his acoustic guitar has him stopping in his tracks.

Facing his roommate’s door with his heart pounding in his ears, he stands frozen, listening as Chanyeol hits a wrong note and starts again, and Sehun wonders what the hell he’s about to get himself into, already feeling the familiar guilt creeping back 

But he shouldn’t let that get to his head- because it's not like he's planning to go in there and make a move, and he definitely doesn’t want to try and get another confession from Chanyeol either, though this must look like-

No, Sehun might want a reaction, but that's all- and is that even mean, when Sehun is just searching for proof that at least one person still likes him?

With that half-hearted excuse and only a small fraction of his previous determination left running through his veins, Sehun knocks out their usual melody, waiting with bated breath for Chanyeol’s muffled ‘come in’. 

His abdomen kept tightened, Sehun squares his shoulders with a deep inhale before he steps inside the small room, where Chanyeol is sitting on the edge of his bed right in front of him. 

And just from the way Chanyeol looks up at him before darting his eyes back down to the guitar too quickly, Sehun can sense his damaged pride start to flare up for the first time in too long, feeling better about this, already. 

“Hey- what’s up?” Chanyeol asks, his voice gruffer than usual before he clears it, electricity sparking low in Sehun’s stomach.

“Nothing much,” Sehun plays off with an easy shrug as he leans against the cold door. “I just wanted to say hi.”

“Oh, right… Hi,” Chanyeol laughs out, his face still hidden as he rubs the back of his neck, but Sehun can see the red tips of his ears poking out from his curly hair.

“Hi,” Sehun repeats with a lopsided smirk, the one he normally saves for when he’s tipsy and flirting, though he fails to hold it back, now. “You’re sounding really good, hyung.”

But Chanyeol just lets out a sigh at the compliment, readjusting his sitting position and moving his large hands back to the strings. Unable to help it, Sehun’s gaze follows, before fixating on how Chanyeol’s forearms are exposed by his rolled-back hoodie sleeves, all veiny and toned, and he imagines how they would feel to-

Blinking quickly, Sehun has to force himself back to the present before he gets lost, again, trying to shake those dumb thoughts out of his mind for good.

“- I can’t get this one part right, though,” he catches Chanyeol grumbling, as his fingers pluck out crisp, stand-alone notes. “And it’s meant to lead into the ballad bit.”

“Hey, you’ve made a lot of progress since you first started,” Sehun assures, and he really means it, though it’s also an easy way to slip in a coyer tone, his thumbs resting on the inside of his trackpants. At the concerned frown Chanyeol makes behind his glasses, showing that he doesn’t agree, Sehun presses on. “I’m serious, hyung. Even with having assignments due every other weekend, you’re still doing great.”

“It’d sound better on electric, anyway,” Chanyeol dismisses, like he does about most songs, as if he isn't worried enough about bothering the neighbours when he plays his acoustic Martin. “I’m definitely gonna learn that when I go home for the break.”

“Oh yeah? Then you’d better send me videos, hyung,” Sehun insists, his eyebrow lifting with a teasing look.

“Only if I get it perfect,” Chanyeol states, still not bothering to even peer up, and Sehun feels a flicker of annoyance until Chanyeol asks- “So, how was the party last night?” and Sehun stops dead.

“Uh… good- no, it was great,” Sehun forces out, his throat clamping shut around the lie, face and chest flaring with the memory. “Youngho- really knows how to throw a wild one.”

“Really?” Chanyeol wonders, and Sehun’s nerves are heightened, dissecting his tone with the paranoia that Chanyeol might somehow know what happened. But where would he have heard that Youngho had answered the door and lied to Sehun’s face about the event being cancelled, even with the music still blasting at full volume behind him- “You were back pretty early, though.”

“Yeah, I- just got sick of it,” Sehun tries to dismiss, as if he wasn’t laying on his bed for hours afterwards, trying to convince himself that his worst fears about university weren’t all coming true.

Thankfully, Chanyeol simply nods to himself and drops the subject, focused back on his guitar, so that Sehun can swallow down the harsh remnants of last night, ignoring them for now, at least. He doesn’t let himself catch his breath just yet, though, not when he came in here for Chanyeol’s reaction, and he isn’t satisfied with what he’s gotten, yet. 

Deciding to change tactic, Sehun fakes a stiff yawn as he leans off of the door and straightens up, because if there’s one thing he’s learnt how to do this past year, it’s to get someone’s attention when he wants it. Chanyeol’s room is equally as small as his, but there’s a clear path along the length of the bed, from the neat desk to the wall covered in band posters, that Sehun starts to pace across. 

“Hyung,” he whines out, flexing his back muscles as he rolls his shoulders, and he catches Chanyeol glancing over from the corner of his eye. “I’m so bored.”

Chanyeol only hums in response, plucking out a gentle scale, his attention off of Sehun by the time he passes by him. 

“Are your friends busy today?” Chanyeol asks, and his intentions are still just as innocent, but the question stings. 

“Yep,” Sehun snips, going to fold his arms across his chest, before quickly dropping his hands back to his sides. “All busy,” he lies, having already said no to Baekhyun and Jongdae’s tenth drinking plan of the week, not in the mood after whatever happened the last time he got wasted.

“Damn,” Chanyeol says sympathetically, tapping his fingers on the wood in thought. “Uh-” The word catches, and he coughs lightly to clear it. “You could play PUBG, I guess? Or watch variety shows?”

“Nah, not feeling it,” Sehun states, waiting for a better suggestion.

But Chanyeol just shrugs him off with a bland 'fair enough', and the conversation comes to an unnatural halt, one that would have made Sehun feel incredibly uncomfortable if he wasn’t already simmering with frustration. 

Continuing to pace, Sehun makes a show of stretching out his upper body, sighing and moaning as his attempts to get Chanyeol’s eyes back on him grow more and more impatient, while Chanyeol is busy fiddling with the tuning keys of his guitar, and Sehun is not at all used to being ignored like this. 

“Actually, y’know what I feel like watching?” Sehun remembers, suddenly stopping right in front of Chanyeol with a hand on one hip.

“Hm, what?” Chanyeol asks, barely sounding interested yet, and Sehun has to fight the victorious grin off of his lips.

 _“Bohemian Rhapsody,"_ he answers teasingly, expecting Chanyeol to instantly perk up, when instead, Chanyeol’s concentrated expression barely softens from the huffed laugh he lets out.

“How good was that movie?” he says with a lift in his voice, but Sehun’s got enough proof that something’s off, now.

Because normally, Chanyeol would already have jumped up to make the popcorn and pile up blankets in the living room, like they’d kept saying they would when they had this long-awaited movie night. Yet now, when they finally have a weekend free to do it, Chanyeol doesn’t even react, letting another pause take over the widening gap between them.  

Gritting his teeth, Sehun stares down at his hyung, at his hunched pose and pursed lips, at the shiny line of sweat running from under his sideburn to his jaw, and the way his fingers are subtly shaking as he twists the same knob back and forth, and Sehun decides to test what’s wrong. 

“Maybe I should just go to the gym,” he states, his voice too curt to sound casual.

“Again?” Chanyeol deadpans.

“Couldn’t hurt to train more,” Sehun reasons, before bending in his forearm and rubbing over his tensed bicep with a tentative, “Do my muscles look okay, hyung?”

“Uh- yeah. They look good,” Chanyeol says half-heartedly, the lump in his throat audible.

“You haven’t even seen them,” Sehun clips, pinning a frown onto him.

“Right, sorry-” Chanyeol fumbles out, and he flashes the briefest smile Sehun’s way, one that barely dents his red cheeks before he nods and turns back down. “It’s- obvious that you’ve worked hard.”

“Is it?” Sehun prompts as he cocks his head to the side, and god- he’s never had to push anyone this hard.

“Yeah, but- you should really put a shirt on,” Chanyeol switches to saying, then shooting him a longer matter-of-fact glance that has Sehun’s heart crashing down as fast as it had leapt up. “Just because it’s April doesn’t mean you won’t catch a cold.”

“Oh,” is all Sehun can say to that. 

As Chanyeol goes back to ignoring him, again, Sehun is left standing there with his insides churning. Filling with uncertainty, he wonders if he must have imagined that first glance when he came into the room, because it doesn’t match this Chanyeol, who seems genuinely more interested in the guitar that Sehun is stopping him from playing.

And with that thought, other mundane scenes that Sehun’s played over and over for the past two weeks shutter in front of his eyes, this time, under an entirely different lens, one that would explain why Chanyeol hasn’t acted differently with him at all- not even once giving away a sign of shyness or attraction that would match his confession-

So then, is Sehun remembering that night at Taeil’s wrong, too? Did things just get more distorted from every single time he’s picked it apart- those sad words that he forced out of Chanyeol, that one hopelessly in love expression that he’s burned into his mind but never seen since? 

Has Sehun just barged in here and made a complete idiot of himself? 

This should be his cue to give up, then, before he makes the situation any more awkward for both of them- and Sehun’s painfully aware that he’s about to do just that as he marches the last few steps towards Chanyeol. But something jagged is pushing him forward, like shattered pride mixed with his last shreds of desperation, and then it's already too late.

Flopping down on the mattress and knocking against the guitar, Sehun squishes closer to fit his head onto his hyung’s shoulder, instantly feeling him stiffen up beneath him.

“Chanyeollie-hyung~” he coos, using that cutesy voice he remembers Chanyeol going weak for, while really wishing he was drunk this time too, so that this intimacy didn’t make every burning fibre of him want to flinch away.

“Hm?” Chanyeol mumbles out, still angled away, and Sehun forces himself to nuzzle his cheek into Chanyeol’s hoodie.

“Let’s do something fun together,” Sehun whines, his wet hair brushing against Chanyeol’s warm neck and making his hyung seize up even more.

“Like- like what?” Chanyeol asks a bit breathlessly, before he coughs.

“We... could go grocery shopping?” Sehun suggests, twisting to try and catch Chanyeol’s averted gaze with no luck.

“Does that count as fun?” Chanyeol jokes, the tension obvious in his freshly-shaven jaw, and what if this is a huge mistake-

“It does if I’m with hyung,” Sehun states, watching Chanyeol’s Adam’s apple sink and rise. “Maybe…” Sehun tries, the word trailing off when his eyes lift to Chanyeol’s pink, wetted lips, feeling his own heart pang inexplicably. From here, it would be so easy to just-

“Maybe what?” 

“Uh-” His head suddenly clouded, Sehun blinks to try and remember what he was going to say, except that he’s still stuck wondering if Chanyeol’s walls would finally break down if he leaned in that little bit further-

“Maybe,” Sehun repeats, shifting off of his shoulder but keeping his trembling chest pressed into Chanyeol’s sides, the arm supporting him on the bed reaching further around Chanyeol’s back. “We... could cook dinner together,” Sehun murmurs as he moves in inch by inch, his blood pounding so loud he can’t even hear himself speak. “Watch a movie...” Chanyeol turns the slightest bit towards him, then, his mouth perfectly parted, and Sehun’s so close that his eyes naturally flutter shut, his words breathed out with the last air from his crumpled lungs. “Or we could just…”

“Ah, wait-” Chanyeol sputters out, Sehun feeling him suddenly jerk away- breaking out of his hold- and everything crashes back down on him with a deafening shatter. “Actually, I-I can’t- I’m going out tonight.” 

Sehun can’t manage a single reaction, frozen there, the pain that’s wrenching apart his body agonizing.

“Yeah, uh- sorry, I should have said earlier…” Chanyeol rambles, his words panicked and stabbing Sehun between his ribs, and he squeezes his eyes tighter shut, feeling like such a fucking idiot. “Kyungsoo and I are- um- gonna try out that new Vietnamese place,” he explains, and Sehun’s stomach recoils sickly against all the pressure around it, before Chanyeol can rush out. “You could come with us if you want- I’ll pay-”

“No thanks- I think Kyungsoo might have a problem with that,” Sehun lacks the self-control to not blurt out with all the acidity and heartache filling his mouth.

“What- why would he?” Chanyeol asks in confusion, but Sehun’s already forced himself up onto unsteady feet, his vision blurred as he bolts as fast as possible with his arms shielding his exposed chest- needing desperately to get out. “Sehun-”

“It’s fine- just go,” he insists, voice cracking before he slams the door behind him. 

Stumbling over until he plunges into his own room, Sehun dives straight for the bed where he curls up into a tight ball, fighting for air against the overwhelming weight of shame that he’s drowning under. Every inch of him aches with this horribly familiar feeling, the one that kept him holed away for years, but this is the worst it’s ever been- and now that he can finally see himself for the joke that everyone else does, Sehun wishes he had never come out-

Startling his panting, one guitar strum is struck on the other side of the wall, the angry note echoing over the sounds of Chanyeol clattering out of his bedroom and of footsteps marching towards the front entrance.

But once the note fades, there’s only Sehun, lying there in a deafeningly silent apartment, letting all the worries he's kept at bay now surge out and drown him alive.

 


	3. Too Much Love Will Kill You

Sometime between the early morning and late hours of the night, there’s a soft knock on Sehun’s door.

It’s enough to rouse him from a vacant nap, coming back into the soreness of his own body and the quiet lyrics playing in one ear, but Sehun doesn’t move from where he’s slumped over the desk, easily able to convince himself that he just imagined the noise in his half-conscious state.

Before he can slip back under to the hum of _Too Much Love Will Kill You,_ though, the melody is rapped out again, and Sehun lifts open his heavy eyelids, unsticking his cheek from the open pages of his textbook. In his yellow-lit room, with the same Queen song on repeat all fortnight, there’s nothing to signify how much of the day he’s wasted not studying.

“Sehun?” he hears Chanyeol gently call from the hallway, and his restless heart thumps a little harder, having expected Chanyeol to already be gone without saying a word. “Are you alright?”

Seeing no point in answering, Sehun swallows thickly, pulling out his earphone so that only his pulse is left ringing in his ears, until Chanyeol eventually speaks up again. “I uh- made us dinner.”

“Not hungry,” Sehun manages to croak out, the lie scratching his unused throat.

“You have to eat something,” Chanyeol states, and Sehun doesn’t know how to reply to that, falling quiet again. “Will you please come out for a bit?” he asks, his muffled voice almost sounding upset, now. “My sister will be here soon.”

A hollow pang hits Sehun in the chest, knowing that this is the last chance he has to see Chanyeol until the mid semester break is over, and that thought hurts more than it should be allowed to, after the past two weeks of Sehun hiding from Chanyeol every chance he could.

But before he can remind himself of every reason why he shouldn’t, Sehun’s already murmured out a quiet ‘okay’, then immediately clamping his mouth shut, hoping that Chanyeol hadn’t heard. 

“I’ll set the table,” Chanyeol says after a moment, before he pads back down the hallway, and Sehun only lets out a heavy sigh to himself, his lungs left wrung too tight, hating how pathetic he is.

Rubbing over his sore eyes and putting his glasses on, he slowly pushes back his chair from his desk, that’s covered in hastily-scrawled notes about foreign exchange, risk analysis, and everything from the _Multinational Financial Management_ classes that he’s been skipping. Not wanting to think about how much he still has left to do, Sehun stands up, almost dizzy with how weak he feels, and he shoves his hands into his hoodie pocket, kicking aside the mountain of clothing in the way of him and the door. 

Out in the warm hallway, he can smell a mouth-watering mix of spices and cooked meat that makes his stomach clench up painfully, unable to remember the last time he had a good meal to eat. The first week, Sehun spent stuffing himself with fast food, but he soon ran out of money for that, and now, he’s only living off of the crap he bought in bulk from the convenience store downstairs, not willing to go any further from the apartment. It’ll only be worse when Chanyeol’s gone, though, because Sehun will have no reason to try and get outside, away from the thick tension that has clogged up every corner of this apartment, seeping through the thin walls to make even the seclusion of his own room unbearable. 

With his bare feet dragging along the wooden floor, Sehun tells himself that he should be grateful that he’ll finally have the place to himself and won’t need to schedule his life around not bumping into Chanyeol, but the hurt of Chanyeol leaving like this still burns selfishly inside him. 

Chanyeol does this every class break, going back to his childhood home in Apgujeong-dong, where his sister and mother live. Except that this time, Sehun knows that Chanyeol’s rushing to get away as fast as he can because his last test was just this morning, and his large suitcase and guitar are already packed in the corridor and ready to go. 

It’s not like he can blame Chanyeol, though, not when this whole situation is Sehun’s fault, and Chanyeol is the one just trying to keep some sort of peace. He’s sure that Chanyeol’s only invited him out because he’s too polite not to, so Sehun will repay him by sparing them both the awkwardness, by only taking a few bites before he says he needs to get back to studying. Then, Chanyeol will leave, while Sehun goes back to falling in and out of sleep at his desk, already given up on his marks, and he’ll spend the break looking around campus for whoever needs a roommate, already dreading having to tell his parents that he needs to move, though Sehun won't be picky and expensive this time-

But Sehun’s familiar train of anxious thoughts are broken up when he steps into the open area, where Chanyeol is running between the kitchen and living room with his hands full of steaming dishes.

Stopping to blink in confusion, Sehun can make out tofu stew, beef stir fry, spicy rice cakes, and just about every meal Chanyeol has made them in the past all laid out before him on the table, that he’s beckoned towards with a nervous smile. 

“Okay- I might’ve gone a little overboard,” Chanyeol admits around a breathy laugh, while Sehun is still stuck staring between all the dishes and the cluttered kitchen counter. “But I wanted you to have enough leftovers while I’m gone, so… Yep. Tada?”

“Uh- thanks...” Sehun murmurs, still in shock as he inches closer, having no idea what to say. “You- didn’t have to.”

“Hey, I don’t want you living off of uncooked ramen packets for another two weeks,” Chanyeol tries to joke, though Sehun can’t bring himself to even fake a chuckle, his insides twisting up as he thinks of Chanyeol slaving away in the kitchen all day, so quietly that Sehun didn’t even hear him. “Uh- did you want a drink of anything? I’ve got juices, sodas- I probably stocked you up on enough chocolate milk for the whole year, just in case-”

“No, it’s okay,” Sehun cuts off, before wincing at how unintentionally harsh his words came out.

Head ducked, he slowly lowers himself to sit cross-legged on his cushion, where he hunches over, nodding slightly when Chanyeol asks if he can fill up his bowl. As his hyung does, Sehun presses a hand onto his stomach, that has shrivelled up with painful guilt, so when his meal is carefully set down in front of him, he no longer feels he can fit any of it in.

“Let’s eat!” Chanyeol says happily, the metal clink of his chopsticks prompting Sehun to reach for his own with stiff fingers, but his hand stays rested numbly on the table, eyes glazing over the steaming food.

He doesn’t deserve this- not after the way he’s been treating Chanyeol, by running to his room at the sound of him coming home, or the curt one-word replies if they ever had to speak. Chanyeol should’ve gone without a second thought and just left him to wallow, which is how Sehun is used to people treating him all of high school. But instead, why would Chanyeol do all of this, for someone he doesn’t even like in that way-

“- Sehun?”

“Huh?” Sehun blurts out, startled into looking directly up at Chanyeol for the first time.

He only gets back a patient smile, almost imagining a saddened lilt to it as Chanyeol explains, “I asked how’s the studying going?”

“I- uh, it’s fine,” Sehun fumbles out, dropping his head back down with burning cheeks. 

“Just think, you’re almost done,” Chanyeol tries to encourage. “Well, half-done with the class.”

“Yeah, right…” is all Sehun mutters out, having forgotten how to talk to Chanyeol after so long, and he shoves in a mouthful of hot food, hoping it’s enough of an excuse to not have to say anymore.

“So, what are you doing tomorrow, after the test?” Chanyeol asks a still-chewing Sehun, who has to swallow too much so he can answer the question and not leave an uncomfortable gap in conversation. 

“Sleeping,” he says hoarsely, before grabbing his glass to gulp down water, really wishing that Chanyeol would stop pretending that he wants to talk to him.

“Hey, that’s no fun,” Chanyeol chuckles out. “You’ve got a free house! Just don’t throw too many wild parties, okay?”

At that, Sehun barely holds back a grimace, because that’s the last thing he wants to or could do, considering that half the course hates his guts, and he’s avoided the other half enough that they must have joined in. The only challenge will be dodging Baekhyun and Jongdae, since they’re somehow still bombarding him with messages about going out drinking every day, none of which he's responded to this week.

But Sehun doesn’t bother to explain any of that, only continuing to pick around his food.

“Does it taste bad?” Chanyeol checks, and because Sehun’s able to imagine the distressed face his hyung must be pulling, he minutely shakes his head. “Are you sure? You’ve barely touched it.”

“No, it’s good,” Sehun mumbles out, taking a small bite of rice cake so his weak tone is more convincing. “Just not hungry.”

“Oh, that’s alright,” Chanyeol sighs out, sounding genuinely relieved, before he rushes straight back into his next concern. “Hopefully it’s still good next week- but I’ll freeze most of it, of course. I think there should be enough, just let me know if you run out, though, and I’ll…” At Sehun’s stolen glance up at him, Chanyeol’s words trail off, his mouth hanging open for a second before he breaks out into a nervous grin. “I’ll uh- work something out,” he shrugs off.

“Thanks, hyung,” Sehun can only say softly, the gratitude thick in his voice before he drops his gaze back down.

“It’s okay. This is the least I can do,” Chanyeol insists, but there’s a sudden guilt in his tone that stabs through Sehun’s thumping chest, because it almost sounds like a consolation prize.

In the quiet that follows, Sehun knows that this would be the best chance to leave, to stop fooling himself into thinking everything is normal, except that every inch of him longs to stay out here, where it’s too easy to pretend that Chanyeol at least cares about him- even if he doesn’t like him like that. But right now, Sehun is willing to take whatever he can get, no longer able to be greedy about it. 

“Are you excited to go home?” Sehun asks hoarsely, letting himself take another peek.

“Yeah- I am!” Chanyeol exclaims, nodding at him with a huge beam, his cheeks still puffed with food, and Sehun’s own lips start to loosen, the feeling foreign and bitter after so long. “Super excited!”

“Any plans?” Sehun asks around a bite that’s somehow harder to swallow than the previous ones.

“I mean- I know I should be working on my thesis, but I’m just keen to play some guitar and spend time with my family…” Chanyeol pauses for a second, looking almost sheepish. “I guess, I’ve really been missing them, lately.”

“Have you been homesick?” Sehun can’t stop himself from wondering, too quickly falling into old worried habits about his hyung.

“I don’t know, maybe,” Chanyeol muses with a frown. “Wouldn’t that be selfish of me, though? My family is only forty minutes away, and yours is three hours away.”

“It’s not selfish, hyung,” Sehun assures, knowing that distance has nothing to do with it, because he’s been hollowed out with that empty feeling too, though it isn’t for his own house back in Pyeongtaek. "You can't help how you feel."

“But- uh, what about you? How have you been?” Chanyeol asks, turning his stare onto Sehun, whose pulse stutters under the seriousness of his gaze, before Chanyeol is immediately backtracking. “Wait, actually- you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want-”

But Sehun _does_ want to- feels himself bursting with longing for how things were before- would do anything to fix what he did, and that has to be why he blurts out over Chanyeol’s rambling-

“I’ve missed you.” 

Immediately, Chanyeol freezes, Sehun watching with held breath as a wide-eyed shock overcomes his red face.

“Oh… uh-” Chanyeol stutters, before he huffs out a panicked laugh, his hand rushed through his messy fringe, and Sehun squeezes his eyes shut.

“Never mind,” he mutters, already overcome with an ice-cold wave of regret.

“No! I-I’m sorry,” Chanyeol scrambles to say. “I just didn’t expect you to-”

“It’s fine, hyung,” Sehun fails to cut him off with, not knowing what he’d been hoping for, but feeling horribly pathetic.

“- and I’ve been so swamped with uni and stuff-” 

“I know,” Sehun insists, sick from these excuses that he doesn’t even deserve-

“- and I just haven’t been thinking straight, but I never meant to upset you- I swear-”

 _“Hyung-”_ he snaps, so that Chanyeol actually shuts up, and he can starkly picture the hurt expression that must be on Chanyeol’s face, though he's unable to look with the frustration stinging at the back of his own eyes. “Let’s just forget it, okay?” Sehun tries to play off, though he’s too overwhelmed with emotion, his jaw clenched shut with it and the words coming out jagged.

And when there isn’t any protest, Sehun doesn’t know if that’s worse or not, only that the air around them is impossible to gulp down, now. Too nauseous to even pretend to eat, Sehun wraps his arms around his swirling stomach, that lurches from the realization that he’s fucked up _again._ By this point, he doesn’t know how he hasn’t learnt to just stay silent like he used to, when he only makes things worse every time he opens his mouth.

“Hey…” Chanyeol starts gently, and Sehun clutches tighter, hanging onto each of his hyung’s carefully-weighted words despite everything. “If you ever feel like coming over while I’m gone, just message me, okay? There’s a bowling alley nearby- or we could just play games at my house?” 

Fighting back every instinct to leap at the offer, Sehun has to grit his teeth together, drilling into his head that it doesn’t mean anything.

“Otherwise, I can come back here!” Chanyeol continues, his enthusiasm so painfully close to being real. “I can borrow my sister’s car whenever, and we can just chill and do whatever you want. Hey, do you still feel like watching Bohemian Rhapsody?”

No way- Sehun isn’t falling for it, nails digging into his skin through his hoodie, and he wishes he could demand why Chanyeol’s being so nice to him when he doesn’t like him in that way-

But there’s no point in even asking, when Sehun already knows the answer, that Chanyeol is only saying these things out of pity and nothing else. Hearing it out loud would only shatter him all over again-

“- Sehun?” he’s patiently prompted, his vision still watered over. 

“... I don’t know,” Sehun numbly murmurs, unable to remember the question.

“Right, just- text me if you ever need anything,” Chanyeol says, his pleading voice now distant, Sehun shut too far away. “Anything at all- okay?”

Drained of the energy to speak anymore, Sehun doesn’t respond, doesn’t unfurl an inch, and the rest of the meal blurs past him, his miserable thoughts only broken up by Chanyeol’s half-heard attempts to change subjects, until he gives up, too.

As Chanyeol stands to wash up the dishes, all barely touched, Sehun folds his arms over the table, where he buries his head. Every inch of him heavy and aching, he lets himself be pushed under by the sounds of running water without protest, back into the blank space where he’s been trapped all day, needing the break from his own brain more than ever. 

The next thing he feels, unsure if it wakes him up hours later or if he still hasn’t fallen asleep yet, is his body gently being lifted up with a rustle of fabric.

“C’mon,” Chanyeol’s low voice coaxes, the comfort of it washing like liquid through Sehun’s ears. “Let’s get you into an actual bed.” 

Instinctively, Sehun leans into the strong wall of heat he’s offered, his head drooping until it finds the perfect place to rest, imagining that it’s in the crook of Chanyeol’s neck. So easily enveloped in the fantasy, Sehun sighs quietly and nestles closer, his heart settled as his feet are lead to glide across the floor, almost as if they’re swaying to hushed music.

“Why are you being so nice to me, hyung?” Sehun wonders to himself, the question barely grazing across his consciousness, barely there, so his muffled brain misses half the reply.

“- after I’ve been so shitty to you all month, this really is the least I can do.”

Suddenly, Sehun is jostled, before Chanyeol wraps around him tighter, what he said quickly forgotten.

“Easy, now,” Chanyeol murmurs, the warmth of his chuckle curling up in Sehun’s chest as they change course. “It’s only gotten more like a maze in here.”

With a steady support on his neck, Sehun finds his whole world slowly tilting backwards, and too soon, he’s slipping out of Chanyeol’s embrace. As he tries to find the vocal cords to protest, he lands onto soft padding and instantly melts into the new cocoon of warmth that’s draped over him, though it lacks the same flutter as before.

“There, all tucked in,” Chanyeol assures, slipping his glasses off, and Sehun lets out a contented exhale. “And it’s only- eight o’clock, wow... You haven’t been sleeping well lately, have you?” Chanyeol murmurs sadly, with gentle fingertips dusting across Sehun’s cheek that Sehun nuzzles towards, wanting to keep him there. “I'm sorry, I just- want to fix this... But I don’t know how.”

And floating this far under, where nothing else can touch him, Sehun’s one simple want slips out in a whisper.

“Stay.”

‘Stay?’ echoes back to him, cracked in the middle, and then there’s nothing. 

In the peaceful silence that deepens around them, Chanyeol’s palm still cupping his face, Sehun vaguely thinks he might not have said anything at all, sinking further and further down where it would be impossible to speak, anyway.

“That’s what you said last time...”

The sounds are played back to Sehun at half-speed, his mind taking twice as long to decipher them as words, and then even longer to understand that Chanyeol’s answer isn’t right. 

Wading through the thick waves, it takes the last of his sluggish energy to break free, Sehun slowly blinking his heavy eyelids open until the dim shapes come together-

And there, hovered a breath above him, so close up that he’s still in focus, Chanyeol is looking straight into him, his expression pained but infinitely tender, and Sehun’s gaze widens, poring over all of it. Chanyeol’s eyes that are glassy with longing behind his frames, his pink skin, his torn mouth- it’s that same picture of hopelessness that Sehun had committed to heart, had convinced himself must have been a dream, a dream he must have fallen into, again. 

But this time, Sehun is lucid, and he wants to wake up and rewrite the ending, his heavy hand reaching out to Chanyeol weakly.

“Hyung-”

But a second before they touch, Chanyeol flinches away like he’s been burned, and Sehun’s arm falls limp back to the bed, the blow instant.

“- I’m sorry, I just… can’t,” Chanyeol says, and Sehun can see him straining to put on a smile but failing, unable to even look at him, and that only aches in Sehun more. “It hurts too much.”

“Why?” Sehun silently pleads, struggling against the weight of a whole ocean of sadness between them, that threatens to push him back down, but not before he hears the answer.

With a soft sigh, his head hung, Chanyeol only murmurs, “You already know why,” but Sehun _doesn’t._

Defeated, he lets himself fall back into the dark, curling in on himself to protect his panging chest, as he gives into the same overwhelming helplessness as every other night. Only this time- the wounds run so much deeper.

“Good night, Sehun,” he hears Chanyeol faintly say, the mattress shifting.

As Sehun is swept back up in the turbulent waters, Chanyeol’s cryptic sentence is on repeat, distorted and fuzzy with static, getting more and more lost amongst all the other faded memories until-

Eyes shot open, Sehun bolts up- finally understanding-

But the room is black, the air ringing, and Chanyeol is already gone, again.

 

**🟊**

 

_I can’t- it hurts too much-_

_And I’ve tried to get over it but-_

_You already know why..._

_I just really like you._

The worn words are all jumbling together with the loud noises around Sehun- trapping him back in an endless push and pull between what was confessed on those quiet nights, versus the weeks and weeks of proof that Chanyeol doesn’t feel that way, his temples starting to throb with the familiar conflict. 

Because no matter how much Sehun pours and agonizes over it, how long he spends tearing each interaction into impossibly smaller pieces, he still has no idea what Chanyeol could be thinking, left filled with questions about when he figured out that Sehun knew, or why he’s convinced that he treated Sehun so badly.

And then, there’s the one question that Sehun always comes back to, glaring at him from each dead-end that his thoughts hit: where do they go from here? 

Is it finally time for Sehun to be open and honest, so that things can go back to normal between them- but then, he doesn’t even know if that’s what he wants, stuck too deep in the maze of his own mind, at more of a loss than ever-

“- oi, Oh Sehun! I need backup over here!”

Snapped back to the reality of his living room floor, Sehun just blankly stares at his laptop as his character is shot down in front of him, the colors of the field fading before he turns towards Baekhyun’s string of swears, watching as he’s ambushed by a swarm of players on-screen. 

“Goddammit!” Baekhyun hollers, chucking off his headset so it clatters loudly on the coffee table and makes Sehun’s headache flare as he fixes his glasses. “Come on, man, get your head in the game!”

“Sorry,” Sehun grumbles, not at all remorseful as he picks his chocolate milk back up. Only the first match of PUBG that Baekhun had barged in uninvited and forced them to play had kept Sehun distracted, and now, he can’t be bothered to pretend he’s paying attention anymore.

“And drink the soju!” Baekhyun orders him, waving a hand at the line of already-filled shot glasses behind their laptops. “We spent all that money, and you haven’t even touched it!”

But Sehun just spitefully chugs more of his milk, despite having had enough lactose to the point of feeling constantly nauseous these past few days. 

“Alright, round four, let’s do this!” Baekhyun exclaims, pumping his fists to hype himself up.

“Aren’t you guys done, yet?” Jongdae whinges from where he’s flopped over the couch, still stuck scrolling on his phone since he showed up late.

 _“I’m_ done,” Sehun states, ignoring Baekhyun’s protests by closing his laptop and hoisting himself up.

“Yes, thank you, Hunnie!” Jongdae says triumphantly as Sehun crashes on the free corner of the couch, before scooting closer to show Sehun the text messages on his phone. “I can finally show you the screenshots of what went down with Taeyong and Sooyoung.”

“I’m good,” Sehun states grimly as he pushes his hand away, needing to stay firm in his misery, even if he is curious. 

“Suit yourself,” Jongdae tisks as he leans back, and Sehun’s almost about to prop his feet up on the table before remembering how Chanyeol used to playfully tell him off for that. “Then, we should get ready to go out and hit the town!”

“No thanks,” Sehun grumbles, crossing his legs under himself with flushed cheeks.

“Yeah, he can’t be seen in that outfit,” Baekhyun mocks, even though Sehun could easily point out that they’re both wearing Nike, and that at least Sehun’s trackpants aren’t two sizes too big for him, but that's besides the point that he's sick of being suffocated in these thick, oversized clothes.

“Just go without me,” he dismisses instead, already wrapping himself back into his blanket, keen to be left alone so his hyung-induced headache goes away. Then, he can curl up in his bed and get back to binge-listening to Chanyeol’s songs about unrequited love, and wondering if those lyrics could have been written about him before he fucked everything up-

“But that’s not fair to you,” Jongdae assures, which Sehun can’t help but let out a scoff at, because it’s never stopped them from ditching him all the other times. He hates even more when Jongdae and Baekhyun share a pitying look between each other, before Jongdae tries to gently ask, “Can we at least drag you to Taeil’s mid-sem party tomorrow?”

“Not even if you paid me,” Sehun deadpans, scrunching himself up even further, his arms folded across his chest.

“But he really wants you to come!” Jongdae complains, and Sehun angles away from them both, no longer wanting to talk.

“Come on, man, would you quit it?” Baekhyun groans out, still not taking the hint to just go, making Sehun grit his teeth together in annoyance. “You’re acting like a bratty little shit- this isn’t like you!”

 _Yes, it is,_ Sehun thinks bitterly, but he keeps his mouth clamped shut, still too stubborn to admit it.

“Oi, Baek, lay off-” Jongdae tries to interrupt.

“What? I just want the old Sehun back, don’t you?” Baekhyun argues, and Sehun wants to shoot back that they shouldn’t- that the old Sehun was hiding behind nice clothes and fake confidence to try and delude everyone, including himself, into thinking he wasn’t a massive loser.

But even without a reason to hold up the cold pretence, anymore, Sehun spits out, “I’m sure you guys can find someone else to party with.”

“No, dammit- it’s not about that, man!” Baekhyun says in frustration, Sehun hearing him bang a fist on the table. “We’re meant to be best friends, aren’t we?” he asks, and Sehun bites his tongue on throwing that question back at him, instead seething in silence. “So, how long are you planning to be all mopey and hung up about this without telling us what happened?”

“Baekhyun, do not-” Jongdae tries to warn.

“I’m serious, Dae, we’ve waited for the right moment for long enough!” Baekhyun insists, their raised volume pulsing sharply in Sehun’s ears.

“But you can’t just force it out of him!” Jongdae whinges back, Sehun no longer able to make sense of the loud words being shouted over him.

“Well, face it, he’s never gonna tell us unless we do-” 

“Can you stop yelling?” Sehun snaps as he fires a searing glare between them both. “And what are you going on about?”

“Don’t do it, man,” Jongdae manages to sigh out in the last seconds before Baekhyun speaks, clearly ignoring his pleads.

“Look, we just wanna be there for our heartbroken friend, is that so bad?” Baekhyun asks rhetorically, his side-eye then fixing on an unimpressed Sehun. “It’s kinda hard, though, when he won’t actually tell you that he broke up with the guy he never even said he was dating.”

Entirely confused, Sehun just stares at his offended look, before he blurts out a “huh?”.

“Don’t ‘huh’ us- we already know what went down!” Baekhyun accuses, getting up on his knees to point a finger at Sehun. 

“Clearly you _don’t,”_ he snips indignantly, turning away, again. “Because I have no idea what you guys are talking about.”

“Oh no, you told us _everything_ after we picked your drunk ass up from Taeil’s-” And in an instant, Sehun feels the blood drain from his face, pooling down in his churning stomach, because fuck- this has to be about _Chanyeol-_ “Except, rudely, leaving out the part where you two were making out on the balcony-”

“We didn’t make out,” Sehun counters as soon as he’s gripped back onto his weak voice, brain still fumbling to connect the rest.

“Cut the crap, Sehunnie, Taeil said they all saw you two-”

“Well, he lied-” Sehun says hoarsely, words tumbling over the lump in their way, that he fails to clear in his rush to set things straight. “We never made out- or- or broke up, or even _dated-_ so- you don’t have to worry, okay?”

Quietly shaking, Sehun digs his folded arms into his chest, waiting with held breath and sore lungs for their relieved reactions, so they can just brush it off and never bring it up again-

“No fucking way,” Baekhyun mutters, sounding shocked, and Sehun slowly turns to see that both their jaws are agape.

“You haven’t dated yet?!” Jongdae cuts in with, completely disbelieving.

“Shouldn’t you guys be happy?” Sehun demands, unable to stand that he’s still the only one who’s lost, right now. “I’m not meant to associate with my weird roommate, right?” he says, repeating the venomous orders back at them.

“But he confessed to you, didn’t he?” Jongdae checks.

“Yeah, and that- that’s _it,”_ Sehun urges, the wavering restraint on his emotions breaking apart- and he buries his face in his hands. “God- why didn’t you guys just fucking _ask_ me so I could have told you that?! Instead of talking shit about me behind my back to everyone-”

“Hey, we know how private you are about that stuff,” Jongdae tries to justify, but their excuses aren’t registering, not when Sehun’s head is about to explode in his palms. “We were- all of us were waiting for you to tell us.”

“Or, trying to get you drunk again so you’d spill-”

“That’s why they hate me, isn’t it?” Sehun demands then, snapping up with glassy eyes, his tone cracking with the weight of the realization. “Because they all think I’m gay-”

“Well, you _are_ bi,” Baekhyun corrects, and Sehun grips onto the roots of his hair, all of it too much for him to handle- “And it’s not _everyone,_ Taeil’s chill about it-”

“So that’s why Youngho-” he pants out, barely able to squeeze the words out of his closing throat. “Youngho kicked me out of his party-”

“Wait, he did what-” 

“And Seulgi- bolts in the other direction every time she sees me-”

“Okay, in her defense, she was heartbroken,” Baekhyun explains, but Sehun is spiralling out of control dangerously fast, his panicked thoughts spilling out unfiltered.

“Shit- why did it have to be this- out of _everything-_ ” he gasps out, no air getting in and his lungs on fire- “I’m so fucked, god- I can't fix this! No one would believe me if I tried to lie and-”

A hard smack on the top of his skull cuts Sehun off, making him yell out, “Ow- what the fuck!”

“Snap out of it!” Baekhyun insists, standing his ground as he yanks Sehun’s head up, and Sehun tries to scowl at him, his face still too twisted in pain to look angry. “How’s this going to help?”

“I think Baek’s right for once,” Jongdae agrees, shifted closer to corner Sehun in, who slumps back against the armrest of the couch, weak and defeated as he just focuses on inhaling thinly. “Don’t worry about Youngho- we’ll deal with him, won’t we, Baek?”

“Fuck yeah!” Baekhyun says, both of them so blindly sure of themselves that Sehun wishes he could believe it, too, the pounding behind his closed eyes deafening. “Anyone who’s got shit to say can go through us! And Seulgi will get over it soon enough, so then we’ll get another shot with her-”

“The point is!” Jongdae interrupts, clapping a hand on Sehun’s knee, who instantly flinches away from the contact. “It’s nowhere near as bad as you think, and plus, you’ve got us on your side. So what if a few assholes know, right? If they don’t accept you, they’re not worth having around.”

“Of course you think it’s that easy,” Sehun grits out, knowing his friends would never get it because they’re straight. 

But for Sehun, all of the worry and shame swirls in his gut sickly, making him want to crawl back under the darkness of the covers, back in time to when no one, not even the two people in front of him, thought differently of him for something he can’t control- for something that he feels guilty he can’t just be _proud_ of- and this is why he never wanted to be out.

“Now, I know you’re mad at us and all that, but save it for later. There’s more important shit to talk about,” Baekhyun states, plopping down on the armrest so that Sehun has to fully twist his body over the edge of the couch to not have either of his friends suffocatingly close, wishing they could just leave him alone to try and process all of this. “So, buddy, tell us why you and Chanyeol haven’t dated.”

“Why would we?” Sehun mutters, the uncomfortable position making the nerves under his skin singe, his insides squirming. 

“Uh, because you both like each other?” Baekhyun states as a fact more than a question.

“What-” Sehun can’t stop himself from blurting out, before he understands with a sharp jab through his chest that they’re just testing him. “Uh- no, I...” The words choking him, he swallows thickly, turning even further away so his red-hot cheeks aren’t mistaken. “I don’t like him.”

“Ha, very funny,” Baekhyun says, his laugh short and humorless, before he quips, “But you do.”

“I’m serious,” Sehun counters, more firmly this time, even through chattering teeth and another falter of his heart. “I don’t like him.”

“Right...” Baekhyun drawls out, disbelieving, and Sehun wants to wring his neck- “Then how come you’re such a miserable fuck these days?”

“Because... Because he’s my friend!” Sehun struggles out, all of the frustration bubbling out of him and none of it coming out right, when he needs more than ever for them to understand. “And he was the only person still being nice to me through all this, and I went and- I fucked it up, that’s why-”

“First off- rude, we’re right here,” Baekhyun interjects, not giving Sehun enough time to catch his lost breaths back. “Second of all, you’re full of shit-”

“Yeah, drunk Sehun basically told us,” Jongdae jumps in with, and Sehun can’t keep in his desperate huff, falling limp against the couch.

“What could I even have said?” he groans out, everything in between the confession and Chanyeol tucking him in wiped from his memory of that night, and he digs his fingers into his pulsing temples.

“Well, there was a lot…” Jongdae hesitates before saying, Sehun instantly having to slam the brakes and reverse-

“No, I don’t actually-” 

“Like, you did say that you didn’t want to date anyone at the moment, or you couldn’t for some reason,” Jongdae starts off, and Sehun freezes stiff, unable to fight the block in his muscles so he can cover his ears, can shout over the top of him, can do anything- not ready to know-

“Yeah, but none of that held up when you spent the whole walk home going on about how _funny_ Chanyeol is, and how _nice,_ and _wow,_ he writes such amazing music and he’s so _talented I’m gonna come,”_ Baekhyun gushes, Sehun watching in wide-eyed horror as his friend sways around as if in a drunken trance. 

"Okay- v-very funny guys-" he barely chokes out.

“Oh my god," Baekhyun groans out, ignoring Sehun's strangled attempt to stop them. "And _then_ you wouldn’t shut up about how good he looked that night, and how everyone was all over him and blah blah blah. Longest fucking twenty minutes of my life."

"Are you done now-" Sehun tries to cut in, firmer, before Jongdae beats him.

“And then!” Jongdae enthuses, practically jumping in his place and rocking the couch, making Sehun motion-sick enough to want to heave, his head spinning as he tries to fight off their accusations. “You kept talking about some other dude you hated- _Kyungsoo?”_

Fists tightening to a death-grip in his lap, Sehun’s vision blears red. 

“Oh! Yes, there it is, that’s the reaction!” Baekhyun insists, the mocking laugh he lets out piercing. 

“Cut it out,” Sehun warns darkly, every inch of him set aflame.

“I think someone was a little jealous about their stargazing sessions, don’t you Dae?” Baekhyun carries on, Sehun blinded-

“Oh yeah, he definitely was-”

“Can you both stop _fucking_ with me?” Sehun spits out, bolting upright and half-shoving Baekhyun out of his way. 

"Oi- we’re not! You can’t make this shit up,” Baekhyun shouts over at Sehun, who’s furiously started pacing the small length of the living room.

Seething, every fibre of him trembles as he tries to physically stop himself from coming undone, crossed arms clutching around his fragmented chest.

"But it can’t- I don’t," _like him-_ Sehun tries to force out, though his voice fails him, heart panging- this time so hard that he winces, his steps stuttering a beat.

“It’s okay, man, you can tell us. I mean... we pretty much figured it'd work out between you two, once you realized," Jongdae says gently, his sincere tone not helping at all, because Sehun knows that it’s not real-

“Okay, are you legit still in denial? Or are you the one messing with us, now?” Baekhyun deadpans, expecting an answer, and Sehun is unable to do anything except let out a distressed cry, everything working against him, their lies making him so confused he can’t see straight. "Dammit- just tell us, man!”

“We won’t judge, it’s not like we care who you like,” Jongdae encourages, but Sehun still refuses to believe it, stifled even as he sucks in huge gulps of air. “Plus, it's better for us if you're off the market."

“Yeah, right? Personally, I’d have gone for Seulgi,” Baekhyun states, as Sehun crumples with his back against the entryway wall, his stinging vision blurred over the wooden floor. “But if Chanyeol makes you happy, then we’re gonna back you guys no matter what-”

Pressing his palms into his temples, Sehun shakes his heavy head, until the throbbing of it is louder than the empty promises being shoved down his throat. “You don’t mean that, you don’t mean any of that,” he keeps muttering to himself over and over, unable to stop the acidic bitterness from leaking out-

“Hey, of course we fucking do!” Baekhyun shouts, harshly snapping Sehun out of it. “And since when do you care what we think, anyway?”

“Because!” Sehun sputters out, too in pain to string a coherent thought together- let alone answer right. “I-I just know you’re trying to make a big fucking joke out of me.”

 _“Us?_ Make a joke of you? You’ve been doing that fine by yourself, y’know,” Baekhyun snaps back, and Sehun’s skin sears in protest, wanting to fight back- “I’m sorry, man, but- that’s why people have been talking shit, because you just- cut everyone out and went into hiding, having this little- pity party for yourself. What were we all meant to think?”

Freezing stiff, Sehun all of a sudden becomes too starkly aware of how he looks right now, hunched over like a little kid who’s throwing a temper tantrum, and the shame burrows deeper. 

“And yes, we haven’t been perfect,” Baekhyun continues, his voice almost pleading now. “We shouldn’t have let them bitch about you, and we should’ve gone and asked you first- we know that and we’re sorry…”

“Super sorry,” Jongdae agrees, Sehun listening intently even though he won’t look at them.

“But even though we fucked up,” Baekhyun continues. “We were there the whole time, waiting for you to come talk to us, and we’re still here now. C’mon man, you know you’re our best friend, right? Even if you don’t wanna be, and we’re shit at showing it... We care about you a fuckton.” 

From under the crushing resistance, Sehun slowly raises his head up, peering at both of the people sitting in front of him, who stare back at him with rare worry and sincerity burnt into their expressions- the kind of genuine emotions that they would normally recoil from- and Sehun knows they must be genuine. 

“What Baek said, but imagine I said it nicer,” Jongdae adds on, and Sehun almost cracks a hint of a smile at that- almost.

“Hey, I saw that!” Baekhyun teases, as his own lips split into a large grin. “Now, get over here, man,” he says, patting the top of the couch, though Sehun stays put. “And tell us what’s been going on.”

“Only if you want to, though,” Jongdae corrects as Sehun leans upright against the wall, his back sore from bending down, and every other muscle tender from keeping them clenched up for so long. “And we swear that nothing you say leaves this room.”

“Absolutely, swear it on my life. Now, just let it out, buddy,” Baekhyun encourages, both of them practically on the edge of their seats to hear the answer that Sehun will have to repeat for the tenth time.

But just the thought of denying it again has a dull ache resounding in his chest, rippling through the barely-calmed ocean and threatening another tidal wave. Paused with his mouth open to speak, Sehun averts his gaze from their eager eyes, down to the floor and drawn towards where Chanyeol’s favorite slides usually sit, feeling that same pain echo from seeing the empty space. 

“If… I did like him...” Sehun might be asking, the heavy question numbing his tongue and the racing blood blocking his ears, so he can’t actually be sure. “What would that even look like?”

It’s a long moment of white noise before Jongdae finally cuts back in. “Are you being serious?” he asks, his deadpan tone waking Sehun back into a reality where he really did let those words fall out, and Sehun is jostled into meeting his friend’s confused expression, his voice ripped away like he’s been dunked underwater.

“Ah fuck, just when you think you’re about to hear something good,” Baekhyun complains, about to blow the whole thing off, and Sehun is almost washed over by a crushing disappointment until-

“No, wait- I think he really means it,” Jongdae states, though he doesn’t sound like he believes it himself.

“Oh come on! Like he’s never had a crush on someone before?” Baekhyun jokes between laughs, as Sehun wishes he could force himself into the wall when Baekhyun finally looks over at him and quiets down mid-chuckle. “Wait… Like, never?”

Sehun jerks his shoulders in a defeated shrug, just waiting for it all to process and for their stares to break off of him so he has a chance to breathe, his lungs constricted too tight right now. Feeling like a freak on display, Sehun realizes that he hasn’t been this vulnerable, this stripped raw since the night that he came out, which he only did because of months of agonizing that his overly-nosey friends would somehow find out first. But that was just a comment casually slipped in between shots at a dim Gangnam bar, that he brushed off with all of that confidence he once stood tall with.

This, however, when he’s out in the open, with nothing to shield himself behind-

“Jesus, this is bad,” Baekhyun sighs out, and for once, Sehun has to agree with him. “But- how can you never have liked _anyone?_ I mean, it’s not like you’re a virgin.”

“That’s... different, though,” Sehun manages to mumble out, shaking his head though it does nothing to clear it.

“Okay, respect,” Baekhyun concedes, before he hums in thought. “What about back in Pyeongtaek? Weren’t you some- model-scouted, teenage heartthrob?”

At that, Sehun lets out a huff, knowing why Baekhyun would’ve assumed that. “Not exactly... I was busy just trying to avoid everyone there,” he admits, and oddly, there’s no bitterness laced in his tone. In fact, the truth just comes out softly, empty, Sehun too exhausted to be anything but honest about it. 

“Huh,” Baekhyun states, almost a question.

Just by the look on Baekhyun’s face, Sehun can tell that he’s thinking back to stories that Sehun’s told them before, that were real events but with the time frame left out or stretched back a few years, and Sehun shrugs again.

“No, actually, this could explain a lot,” Jongdae adds in, so that Baekhyun glances over at him, letting it slide for now, Sehun taking in a deep gulp of air, though he can’t relax yet. “Alright, we’re gonna try and explain this, starting from the top.”

“What, like give an introductory class on crushes?” Baekhyun retorts before he’s cut off.

“First off,” Jongdae launches into, even though Sehun isn’t ready, either- “We already know Chanyeol’s your favorite person ever, so that’s a tick. Ah! No,” Jongdae warns at Sehun’s attempt to protest that he never said that. “Drunk Sehun made it super obvious, and we trust him more than you.” 

Left just staring at him, Sehun rigidly closes his mouth, because honestly, he doesn’t trust his own brain, either, and his chest doesn’t disagree. Instead, it’s only hammering faster, with the anticipation for what they say next. 

“Okay, I’ll go next. You think he’s fuckable,” Baekhyun accuses- _states,_ the hot flush spreading through Sehun embarrassingly fast. “Oh yeah, you’ve imagined it before, haven’t you?”

“That’s a tick,” Jondae answers for him, which Sehun tries to tell himself is good when he could never have spit out that guilty ‘yes’, fighting the instinct to adjust the tightened neck of his hoodie in front of them. “And- you’re always putting him first, man. Like when we’re over, all you’re thinking about is how he’s gonna feel about the mess, right? And even when you were completely trashed, you still wanted to know where he was and what he was doing, remember?”

“Oh, big fucking tick!” Baekhyun exclaims, and Sehun is struggling to keep up with everything, just caught in the crossfire of way too many questions. “That’s already the main things when you like someone, yeah? Case solved!”

But Sehun still doesn’t feel ready yet- even though his heart has leapt high up his throat, like it’s dying to get out. His teeth remain firmly gritted, though, clutching tightly onto something to hold it back, like some last shred of doubt, or denial, or protection, that he can’t let break free, even as it slices up the inside of his gums. And Jongdae must be able to see it in Sehun’s distressed expression, because his tone softens. 

“Okay, don’t panic, man,” he assures, and Sehun wants to say that it’s weeks too late for that, but he can’t, his mouth locked shut. “It’s like, we can tell you all sorts of things, but in the end, it’s just about how you feel. That’s how I knew with... anyway.” Jongdae pauses and clears his voice, as if he’s carefully picking each word out, Sehun latching onto them with bated breath. “When you’re with Chanyeol- or you’re thinking about him, or you’re about to see him, it should feel different than with other people you know… You know, you get these butterflies in your stomach, and- sometimes you’re nervous for no reason when they’re around, but you can’t stop smiling, anyway.” 

That hits Sehun way harder than it should- as hard as one of Chanyeol’s brilliant beams when Sehun isn’t expecting it, the impact enough to always knock a grin onto Sehun’s own lips, even when that’s the last thing he wants to do.

“But that’s just the good part, and the bad parts are a whole lot worse,” Jongdae warns sternly, and Sehun has to blink an entire camera roll of images away, to try and focus on what his friend starts blurting out next. “You also get jealous over the stupidest shit and- you feel like you’re going fucking _crazy_ from how much they’re on your mind-” 

Crazy- which is the only thing Sehun’s been this past month, in his most courageous highs and his lowest lows, in every ridiculous reaction that he’s been overtaken by, in the fact that no matter what he does, Chanyeol is only half a thought away, invading all the space in his brain. Even right now, when it takes the physical strength of tearing himself out of a tornado for Sehun to not let himself get swept up in all those worries for another countless time-

“- it’s like you never get a break from it,” Jongdae continues, but he’s just as lost in his own rant, reliving something that strikes at every sensitive nerve under Sehun’s skin. “Because you’re constantly overthinking every tiny thing they do, convinced that _somewhere, somehow,_ there’s that one magical sign that-”

 _I just really like you,_ the memory crackles like an old record in Sehun’s mind, distorted and blurry from overuse, but the lurch of his gut is still just as powerful as the first time- wrenching him towards Chanyeol in a way he didn’t understand before-

“Hell, you might even find that sign, but after it, there’ll be weeks and weeks of nothing except you getting more crazy and obsessed-” 

 _Yes-_ Sehun can’t stop his heart from crying out, its beat racing far ahead of him, sprinting for the finish line-

“And when you finally tell yourself that you should give up on them- out of nowhere, they’ll do a different, tiny thing, and you just start the whole cycle all over again. But you can't ever stop yourself, because-”

“Because…” Sehun takes over for him, his jaw stiff but raw voice barely wavering, “you just wanted it to be real.”

“Exactly,” Jongdae finishes softly.

In that one instant, all the air rushes out of Sehun’s caved lungs, a month’s worth of tension released with the realization, and the world around him is still as he collapses back against the wall.

And just like that, Sehun’s put on a brand new pair of glasses, as the whole past month finally, finally comes into focus, only this time- when it runs through his mind, again, he only sees himself: the extreme reactions he had to every tiny rejection, the hours he wasted on every dissected conversation- reliving all the pain and despair that plagued him far more than his weak excuses could explain-

"Shit," Sehun whispers, hands come up to rub down his sore face, under his useless frames and up to his aching temples. 

This is the first thing that’s made sense in way too long, like he’s finally punched and kicked his way through an impenetrable wall, only for it to come crumbling down on top of him, brick by brick simultaneously freeing and crushing him. About to topple over, Sehun stumbles forward dizzily, somehow managing to make it to the coffee table before he sinks to the floor.

“See, we were right about you liking older guys,” Baekhyun tries to tease, Sehun looking up to see his hand clasped on Jongdae’s shoulder in comfort, and he swallows thickly.

“I’m- uh- sorry about Sunyoung-noona, hyung,” Sehun mutters, really meaning it even if he doesn’t know how to process all the emotions bubbling in the air, but Jongdae just shakes his head.

“It’s all good,” Jongdae dismisses, like he did right after the break up, and Sehun understands that his friend is asking them to ignore it, again. “Let’s just focus on what you’re going to do next.”

“I have no idea,” Sehun says in a heavy sigh, so overwhelmed with things in the past he needs to resift through that he’s nowhere even near considering the future.

“What- obviously you’re going to ask him out!” Baekhyun decides for him, as if it’s that simple, and Sehun huffs to himself. “The whole university will just think you got back together, anyway.”

“Except that I _can’t_ do that-”

“Why not?” Baekhyun challenges, cutting Sehun off even though he was just about to explain. “You call him up and say you were an idiot but that you want to date- or fuck, or do whatever will keep you out of your shitty mood.”

“Because there’s no chance that he likes me, anymore,” Sehun says bluntly, and he shoots Baekhyun an irritated look when he can tell his friend’s about to protest. “Just listen, okay? After Taeil’s party, I did some- stupid things that clearly made him uncomfortable, and we left on really weird terms. I haven’t even replied to him all week, so it’s not like I can suddenly-”

“Okay, you need to listen to _me,”_ Baekhyun interjects, a finger pointed at Sehun sternly, who huffs to himself in annoyance, rolling his eyes. “I don’t even need to hear the story to know that he still likes you.”

“And how do you know that?” Sehun quips, the question rhetoric.

“Oh, c’mon man- you’re _the_ Oh Sehun!” Baekhyun insists, to which Sehun raises an eyebrow, not sold by whatever that’s supposed to mean. “If you can make out with _Bae Joohyun,_ then you can get your nerdy roommate to go on a date with you.” Caught off guard, Sehun doesn’t get to interrogate Baekhyun before his friend throws his hands up in defense. “What? You’ll answer anything if you’re drunk!”

“Listen, man,” Jongdae takes over, and Sehun begrudgingly turns to him. “What Baek’s saying is that Chanyeol’s bound to feel the same way, because- it’s _you._ It’s like, you’ve got this- awesome aura around you, and this cool confidence that people just get caught up in because they want to impress you. Hell, even I do, sometimes.” 

 _“I_ don’t, let’s be clear about that,” Baekhyun asserts, but still, after so long without receiving a single compliment, Sehun almost wants to duck down out of embarrassment. Instead, though, without even realizing it, he realizes that he’s sitten up taller, his spine straightened.

“Anyway, I bet there’s a dozen girls here who would’ve killed to be Chanyeol, just so you might have liked them back,” Jongdae muses to him, and Sehun snorts as he takes it in, a smirk playing at his lips for the first time in what might as well have been years. “But Chanyeol’s something special. I mean, he’s got to be, if he can get Kyunghee’s male beauty to finally fall in love.”

Unable to wipe the smile off his face, a flicker of something different starts to burn in Sehun- something warm and hopeful, rather than dark and consuming. It’s the feeling of finally seeing the way home through a thunderstorm, and knowing he will make the journey back fine. Because now, with the truth on his side, Sehun is stepping back into that confident armor, the one that at some point along the way, must’ve started to be more like his own skin than a disguise, and he’s missed this- this feeling of just being _himself._

“Okay, shit, you can cut it out, Dae. His head’s gotten big enough. And you,” Baekhyun snaps at Sehun, who matches his gaze evenly. “Enjoy this while it lasts, ‘cause we’re never saying any of this nice shit about you ever again.”

“I know,” Sehun replies, his voice firm with renewed pride, and he gets to his feet, ready to walk again. “Because I won’t need you to.”

 

 

 

 


	4. I Want To Break Free

**I Want To Break Free**

 

The next day, Sehun falls right back into step with his old routine like it had been there all along, just waiting for him.

Of course, there are a few bumps along the way, and his morning gym session definitely isn’t his best after three weeks off. Right after that, Sehun also has to make a detour to his barber for some much-needed treatment, to make them snip back a month’s worth of untamed mess and style his crew cut how he likes it, which costs him the last of his monthly allowance.

With  _ I Want To Break Free  _ blasting from his laptop, Sehun’s afternoon is then spent digging through the mountains of shit that have piled up in his room, in search for the perfect outfit for that night. Finally, from the depths of his overflowing closet, he pulls out the vintage leather jacket he had in mind, that has the thrift store tag still attached. With all its frayed band patches and silver-studded lapels, this item is more edgy than Sehun’s normal style, but that’s exactly what he’s going for.

Even with his clothes and hair done in advance, Sehun still spends far too long on getting ready, so that he’s only mid-eyeliner when Baekhyun and Jongdae knock loudly on his apartment door, carrying plastic bags filled with  _ Chamisul  _ soju bottles. Though part of Sehun wants to turn his nose up at the cheap brand, he downs a swift three shots before heading back to his makeup, hoping it’ll push back the slowly-seeping panic that he’s managed to keep at bay since the night before. 

By the time they’re finally heading out, Sehun knows that the dorm party will be at its busiest, and the alcohol is already churning in his twisted stomach, sending sparks jittering through his veins, but his head is still starkly sober. 

_ This’ll be fast, _ he reminds himself when they’re approaching Taeil’s place, getting slowed down as Baekhyun and Jongdae collapse over each other in another giggling fit ahead of him. They’d agreed beforehand that in the worst case scenario, the three of them will ditch campus and hit up the Dongdaemun nightlife- though judging by the state of his friends, Sehun doesn’t think they’ll survive the ten-minute walk.

At least Taeil’s glad to see him, and he grabs Sehun into a tight hug at the door, which Sehun would normally peel away from- but right now, he really appreciates the gesture. 

“It’s good to have you back, man,” Taeil says, letting go with a firm pat on Sehun’s shoulder. “Hey, cool jacket.”

“Thanks,” Sehun states, glad that he’s able to return Taeil’s grin against the tension in his jaw.

But as Sehun marches inside, and he’s able to hear his low-heeled boots clicking along the wooden floor because everything else has gone silent, that smile stiffens. 

He doesn’t falter in his movements though, not until he’s picked up a random beer from the counter and sucked down a large gulp past the lump in his throat. Stopping to stare around, Sehun is welcomed by a few hesitant waves while the others avert their gazes from his, Youngho starting to say something to his girlfriend, and a quiet murmur taking over the stilled air.

“I’ll turn the music back on,” Taeil announces loudly, starting to rush for the television. 

“Let me say something first.” 

His chest lurching a second too late in reaction, Sehun doesn’t know where that firmness suddenly came from, immediately clamping his mouth shut.  

With all the eyes pinning him down, Sehun has already ruined his plan of only making an appearance and sticking to his friends. Now, he has no chance of backing down, all the exits blocked and his sweat prickling, fingers shaking around the can he’s got in a death-grip. But ahead of him, Taeil, Baekhyun, and Jongdae are giving him the most encouraging looks, and Sehun’s brain has short-circuited, so that he’s running off of pure adrenaline when he sucks in a dry breath and lets the sounds tumble out.

“I- yeah, I haven't been around lately,” Sehun starts, his pulse pounding louder than his hushed voice. But he doesn’t dare raise it, because the entire room is listening anyway, and if he did, his words would shake uncontrollably. “And I know there's been a lot of rumours about it. Well, guess what? They’re right.”

There’s barely a ripple from the large crowd, but Sehun hadn’t expected one,  because this isn’t news, not when his guilty absence would have already been enough proof. What he hadn’t expected, though, was for so many familiar faces to stay facing him, to hold his eye contact as he confirms it, and he stands a little taller with every word. 

“I’m in love with another guy,” Sehun says simply, unapologetically, and this is the first time he’s admitted it out loud. "And I- I wanted to hide from it at first, but it's the truth." Feeling the corners of his lips rise with it, he pictures Chanyeol standing beside him in this exact same spot a month ago, cheering him on, as he speaks with finality. "So, that's that. No more hiding, I'm back, now, and I don't care if someone has a problem with me, because I'm done being anything except myself.“

Without another word, Sehun confidently grabs a six-pack and strides back over to his friends to pass the drinks around, and the seal on the room breaks. Conversations start back up, music plays over the top of them, and Sehun’s group multiplies, with old course friends joining in to congratulate and catch him up on all the gossip he’s missed. Even Seulgi comes over at one point, before Sehun can take her away to properly smooth things over between them, so that they’re both laughing together by the end of the night.

And if anybody at the party got offended or talked shit, Sehun never even notices, because he isn’t paying attention to them, far too focused on the people who really matter. 

 

★

 

It’s funny because Sehun’s never thought of himself as a procrastinator, especially not when he compared himself to Chanyeol, who has the worst case of it he’s ever seen.

But in the past week since the party, Sehun has realized that when there’s something he’s not at all ready for, he’s actually just as bad as his hyung. Except that instead of obsessively playing video games for days on end, Sehun will fill up his schedule with friends and events so he’s kept out, and will proudly declare to everyone all the ideas he has for his project, rather than actually doing any of them. Then, when the deadline gets too close to ignore and Chanyeol would be scrubbing their apartment floor until it’s spotless, Sehun is frantically racing around to get things together, leaving a chaotic mess strewn throughout the entire place.

What’s even worse is that cleaning is also on his long list of things to do, but he’s down to the last few minutes before when Chanyeol texted that he’d be home, and Sehun’s got charred popcorn steaming up the kitchen, his hair barely wrung out from the shower he just got out of, and his brown business shirt is only half-buttoned as he turns his room inside-out to find a candle that’ll mask the stench of burning.

After floating through the past week on a cloud of confidence, calmly mulling over his different options to get the right outfit, the right cologne, the right words to say- now, Sehun catches himself hyperventilating over which candle he should use, warm cotton or black cherry? 

Letting out an exasperated groan, Sehun hauls himself up from the clothes-covered floor, rushing his hands through his hair and sending droplets flying. His head is pounding with panic, the pressure closing in from all angles because this is nothing like how he’d envisioned it, or how he'd told it to half the course- with Chanyeol and him sharing a home-cooked dinner on the couch, and burying themselves in blankets and cushions as they watch _Bohemian Rhapsody,_ before Sehun smoothly slips in that this has been a nice date, and asks Chanyeol on a second one.

Oh shit- Sehun hasn’t even downloaded the movie yet- grabbing the cotton candle, laptop and an armful of blankets from his bed before sprinting back out to the common area, where he starts yanking kitchen drawers open to find their lighter.

He’d been so convinced that he should follow his instincts on this and keep it casual, rather than go with Baekhyun and Jongdae's extravagant suggestions that would've cost more than his whole degree- except what if Sehun’s idea is too mundane, or is it too sudden? Is this really going to show Chanyeol how easily they could slip into dating if they just picked things up from where they left off, before any of the shit that happened-

But Sehun’s clatters of doubts and worries are cut off by the sound of shuffling from outside the front door- his heart jamming between his ribs. 

For one brief second, Sehun is overtaken by sheer, ice-cold panic, until he hears the familiar beeps of the keypad being pressed, and all the nerves in his body fire at once. 

There’s no time for him to overthink anymore, and he abandons what he was doing to kick himself into motion- his steps stumbling towards the front door as he wrenches himself past the urge to run down the hall instead, because he’s come too far to give up, now-

Except that as soon as the door swings open and Chanyeol is right in front of him- Sehun is left paralyzed, once again.

There, standing face-to-face, Sehun is helpless against a tsunami wave of emotions, that crashes over him all at once with the overwhelming force of just badly he’s missed Chanyeol. 

The wide-eyed, lips-parted look of surprise, the askew glasses and curly mop of hair- Sehun yearns for it all so strongly that it knocks him completely breathless, and how could it have taken him so long to notice the effect Chanyeol has on him?

“Uh-”

Before he can get washed up in more regrets, Chanyeol’s failed attempt to speak snaps him back, and Sehun blinks past the mistiness, realizing that the white noise is stretching thinner between them with every passing second.

“Oh, h-hey,” he pants out, failing to sound casual, and the smile he tries to put on is only more shaky and unconvincing.

“Hey...” Chanyeol murmurs, just as unsure as Sehun, before he breaks eye contact and clears his scratched voice. “Am- sorry, am I interrupting something? 

“What-” Whipping his head around to follow Chanyeol’s gaze, Sehun can’t see anything that’s up in flames or should be stealing his hyung’s attention, so he turns back with no idea of what to do next, his jumble of thoughts even more derailed. 

But when Chanyeol instantly flinches down to his suitcase, his ears tinged red under the yellow light and his face twisted for the split second before he controls it, Sehun looks down at himself, instead, this time.

“Do you- have someone else over or something?” Chanyeol asks over the feeling of Sehun’s stomach plummeting sickly.

His clothes are dishevelled, his chest heaving, and the water dripping down his temples sears against the flushed heat of his skin, Sehun scrambling to fix his shirt and the misunderstanding he’s made- "Uh- no, this isn’t-”

“Well, don’t let me ruin your fun,” Chanyeol states firmly, Sehun glancing up to see his hyung's steeled expression as he adjusts the guitar case strap over his shoulder. “I can come back later.”

“What- no, wait!” Sehun insists, and this has spiralled so quickly out from his original plan, so far into turbulent waters, all of Sehun's regained confidence torn apart and leaving him naked- “Come in and let me explain, hyung-”

“It’s fine, I have stuff to do, anyway-”

“But there’s no one-” Sehun tries, his pleads strangled by the coldness in the stare that Chanyeol stops to give him.

“I’m- just glad you’re feeling better,” Chanyeol says, the words numb and his smile robotic. 

As he turns away, Sehun’s mind is sent reeling, blinded with desperation-

And before he’s even registered what he’s doing, Sehun has his clammy hands gripped around the handle of Chanyeol’s suitcase, earning a surprised gawk as he yanks it towards him. 

“Just- you have to listen to me, hyung,” Sehun protests, the overflowing frustration spilling out in his panic, in his need to bridge the aching gap between them- “I look like this because of you!”

“What?” Chanyeol asks sharply, scowling again, and Sehun barely sucks in a mouthful of the soured air before blurting out more-

“Because-” he sputters, tripping over all of the scripted words he can’t unjumble in his haste- “You- you make me crazy! And nervous, and I can’t get myself together, or- or make dinner or download a movie-”

But as Sehun’s gesturing around wildly, trying to make his garbled ideas stick together, Chanyeol’s brows only furrow more, his stare guarded and arms crossing, making Sehun feel more and more bare- so badly wanting to tear through it all so that the two of them can match-

Spurred on by pure adrenaline, Sehun suddenly dives forward, knocking everything between them aside to push Chanyeol back, the force slamming the front door shut with a twang of guitar strings. 

Having pinned Chanyeol’s slim body against the wood, Sehun recaptures the raw shock that was hiding behind his hyung’s expression, the rise and fall of their pressed torsos out of time, and Sehun’s leapt heart is threatening to choke him when he goes in-

Only for him to stumble over when a sharp blow strikes on the side of his head- Sehun’s vision flashing red and ears overtaken by a high-pitched ringing.

“Ow-  _ shit-”  _ Sehun seethes, slumping against the wall to hold onto his pounding temple.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry-” Chanyeol rushes out beside him, hands coming to fret over Sehun. “I didn’t mean to do that, I just panicked-” 

“No- it’s my fault-” Sehun manages to grit out, waving dismissively in Chanyeol’s direction with his eyes still scrunched shut as the pain throbs. “I wasn’t thinking-”

“It-it's okay- I'll get you some ice-” Chanyeol insists as he tries to scramble around him in the tight entryway.

But instead, Chanyeol stumbles over Sehun’s legs, sending the rows of shoes at their feet scattering with a cuss word, and the whole situation has gotten so out of control that Sehun can’t help bursting out with laughter.

Reaching out and latching onto Chanyeol for support, Sehun feels delirious as his body doubles over in a fit, not able to pull his unravelled self back together.

“What... is going on?” Chanyeol wonders aloud, Sehun breathless as he slaps Chanyeol’s arm out of habit, then peering up through watery vision to see that his hyung is just as confused as before, but with a hesitant smile playing at his lips.

The tension in the room evaporated, it lets Sehun’s lungs expand and more giggles bubble out, until soon enough, Chanyeol’s tentatively joining in. With deep chuckles, Chanyeol slips off his guitar case and fluffs up his messy fringe, the wide grin brightening his flushed face, and Sehun doesn’t even try to hide his fond stare as they lean into one another, finally together again.

“Oh, fuck,” Sehun sighs out between the last hiccups left in him, using the hand that isn’t still holding Chanyeol to wipe his cheeks dry. “This is not how I wanted this to go," he huffs weakly.

“And what... is this?”

Having quickly sobered, Chanyeol has now pulled back and is giving Sehun a look, one that’s intense and questioning this close up, Sehun feeling it raise goosebumps on his heated skin, knowing that Chanyeol’s staring straight at what a mess he is, right now, and demanding an explanation.

With the echo of a pang in his chest, Sehun can feel the memories of disappointment and hurt from every other time he’s let his mouth run in front of Chanyeol prickle through them, almost making him yank his hand back to shield himself. 

But when he meets his hyung’s large eyes again, now half-hopeful and half-scared, just like Sehun’s own, he feels the courage surge in him to own the state that he’s in, to be wholly honest and vulnerable for the first time with Chanyeol, rather than let his insecurities take over him.

And as Sehun swallows past the shards in his dry throat, filled with renewed determination, he makes a silent promise that no matter what happens between them, that Sehun will be okay, that he'll never go back to that lonely place he's confined himself in for too long.

“Well, hyung...” Sehun murmurs into the space between, the air now electric, buzzing with silent anticipation, his quiet words magnified ten-fold over his stopped pulse and the weight of knowing this will change everything. “I... was trying to confess to you...”

But as Sehun holds onto his one stuttered breath for what feels like hours, waiting for a reaction, Chanyeol doesn’t even blink, doesn’t flinch away or soften in relief, still just a statue of anxious waiting.

“I like you, hyung,” Sehun clarifies, trying to sound casual even though his voice is strung so thin it could snap.

“Huh?” is all Chanyeol blurts out after another long staring match, and the corner of Sehun’s lips quirks.

“Idiot, you heard me,” he mumbles, ducking his head and his searing blush down for a quick break. 

“Is this some kind of prank?” Chanyeol accuses, finally snapped out of the shock so his gaze is now darting around wildly.

“No, this isn’t  _ Hidden Camera,”  _ Sehun jokes, though Chanyeol only stops to frown at him, still looking just as worried. “I’m serious, hyung.”

“Then, is this another dream? Am I still at my mom’s house?” Chanyeol puffs out, roughly pinching his arm through his hoodie until Sehun steps in and pulls his sweaty hand away.

“Just- let me explain from the beginning,” he states more smoothly, Chanyeol staring at their linked fingers for a moment before he tentatively detaches them, and Sehun tries not to slip and lose his footing from the small rejection. “Actually, uh- let me redo the whole thing, because this has to be the worst confession in history-”

At that, Chanyeol barks out a humorless laugh, surprising Sehun who still can’t catch his gaze back. “No, I think I still win there,” Chanyeol says grimly, rubbing over his puffed eyes before he pushes his glasses back up.

“So, you do remember,” Sehun muses, only willing to lightly test the waters, though Chanyeol has no hesitation about diving right in.

“Of course I do! _ ” _ he groans out, deflating against the wall with a wince like it still hurts, just as dramatically as his stories are usually told. “Ugh, it was the most embarrassing moment of my entire  _ life- _ I wish I  _ could  _ forget it.”

“I don’t,” Sehun states, making Chanyeol steal a peek over at him, his hyung’s mouth going awry from the smile he’s fighting down, and Sehun has needed this so much- aching to break down everything that’s kept them apart. “If you knew, then why did you pretend?”

“I just thought- I dunno,” Chanyeol whines out, flailing his arms around as he tries to explain, and he looks so cute that Sehun’s fragile chest is close to bursting. “That it’d be easier that way? That you would just want to forget about it, too- and hey! You were pretending as well!” he accuses with a firm point.

“But  _ I _ was the one doing stupid things just to get you to say something,” Sehun counters, the rhythm between them so familiar he can’t help but push and play along like everything is back to normal, pretending as if his voice isn’t waivering with leftover nerves. “Not that you noticed, hyung.” 

“What- how could I not?” Chanyeol protests, and now Sehun’s the one trying to keep his lips in an indignant line, as Chanyeol’s are taken over by a beaming grin. “You- came into my room half-naked and tried to  _ kiss  _ me-”

“And you pushed me off,” Sehun cuts in with full offence, loving the way Chanyeol quickly scrambles to try and assure him.

“I- I know, I’m sorry, but- I thought you were just messing with me! Or- or that your friends dared you to do it or something-” he rambles on, crimson in the face without stopping for air, while Sehun’s arms stay firmly crossed, chin jutted out. “So I panicked- and it wasn’t until after you ran out that I realized that maybe you were trying to- uh, hook up... I mean, were you?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Sehun says casually.

“Wha- you think?” Chanyeol questions with a gawk, his eyes gone wide and his laugh panted. “How do you not know?”

“I’ll explain soon,” Sehun brushes off, though the heat in his cheeks flares. “Keep going, hyung.”

“So then I thought  _ shit-  _ what if I’ve messed up the only chance I’ll ever get?” Chanyeol laments, not missing a beat. “And right after that, you got so sad and I had no idea why- I thought it couldn’t have been about me, so something really bad must have happened, and I just tried to give you space-”

“No, it was you,” Sehun deadpans, meaning it as a light quip, but Chanyeol’s face instantly twists with regret.

“I’m- really sorry I made you feel that way,” he says with his volume dropped, Sehun’s stomach doing the same.

“Don’t be,” Sehun tries to assure, and while he would normally cringe away from the physical contact, he can’t stop himself from reaching out for Chanyeol’s limp hand and intertwining their fingers, again, Chanyeol letting him this time. 

“I told myself I’d act normal,” Chanyeol tries to explain. “But- everything I did kept coming out cold and distant because I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”

“Why not, hyung?” Sehun wonders, thumb stroking the soft skin of Chanyeol’s damp palm.

“I just… I’ve liked you for ages, actually- since that first night when we stayed up in the living room talking for hours,” he admits with an even gaze, and Sehun’s heart backflips, lodging tight in his throat, because he remembers that moment from the week after he’d just moved in, when he realized that Chanyeol might just be the first friend he’d made in years, and he’d done it without even trying to be someone else. “- but I decided then and there that I wasn’t going to do anything about it, because I never imagined that-” Words suddenly cutting off, Chanyeol just stops and blinks for a second, before he gets flustered and ducks his shaking head down, his giggle muffled behind pursed lips.

“Surprise,” Sehun murmurs, barely having caught his own stuttered breath back, the corners of his mouth impossible to hold down, now.

“It is!” Chanyeol exclaims, gesturing at their clasped hands in disbelief. “I mean, you were always out partying, and- no offence, but you’re best friends with the two biggest fuckboys on campus!” Sehun lets out a snort at that, because Chanyeol has always tried to keep his opinions of Baekhyun and Jongdae diplomatic, but that’s the blunt truth. “- I just didn’t see  _ any  _ signs, even though Kyungsoo kept trying to convince me they were there.”

“Wait- he did?” Sehun demands, having to separate himself from the instinctive acid that Kyungsoo’s name rises in his blood.

“Yeah, he’s always thought you- had a bit of a thing for me…” Chanyeol explains, his free hand coming up to scratch at his bright red ear, as Sehun is intently hanging off of each word. “I kept telling him he was crazy, but- whenever he saw you, he’d still try and test if you were gay, or do things to make you jealous.”

“Well, it worked. I hate that guy,” Sehun states without hesitation.

“I’ve noticed,” Chanyeol chides, Sehun shrugging about it unapologetically, though his mask cracks from the playful way that Chanyeol pushes his shoulder. “I just thought it was for some other weird reason.”

“Huh...” 

Sehun pauses, gauging everything he just heard, and from the way all the tension in his body so readily melts away with the idea, leaving him weak-kneed under Chanyeol’s hopeful stare, it doesn’t take long to decide that Kyungsoo can’t be that bad, after all. 

“Maybe, he might have been onto something...” Sehun quietly teases, thinking that the smile he’s given up on pushing back down must give him away, but Chanyeol’s expression dips into another suspicious frown.

“You know, you’re giving me really mixed signals, _ ” _ Chanyeol insists, though his narrowed eyes falter as Sehun leans in even closer, both of their sides rested against the wall, hands still connected.

“Try definitely,” Sehun puffs, his voice choked with heavy emotion because everything is finally coming together, the pieces fitting better than he could have ever imagined.

And as he cups onto Chanyeol’s burning cheek to make him meet his misty gaze, Sehun doesn’t expect to capture that one look he’s been yearning for ever since he first saw it, but he does, feeling the unconditional love of it ignite sparks throughout his veins.

His lungs emptied, Sehun just wants to savour everything in this moment, to memorize every detail in Chanyeol’s face- the depth in his warm eyes, the sheen to his flushed skin, the stubble on his chin that prickles under Sehun’s fingertips, stroking across the small crack in Chanyeol’s bottom lip that he’s drawn closer to-

“Hey, um-” Chanyeol practically squeaks out, breaking Sehun out of his trance before he has a chance to cross the gap between them. “What about that- that confession you were going to redo?”

“Oh, right, yeah,” Sehun remembers with a breathless chuckle, having gotten so swept up in Chanyeol that he completely lost himself. “Um…” he stalls, blinking to try and figure out where to even start.

“What do you always tell me?” Chanyeol prompts, his shoulders relaxed, again, and his grin bashful. “Don’t make it perfect, just get it over with?”

“I know, hyung, I’ve got this,” Sehun can’t help but clip, barely stopping to clear the lump in his throat before he lets his pulled heartstrings choose the words for him. “Look, hyung, I like you. A lot. I’ve probably liked you for ages, but I could only be honest about it when I was drunk or half-asleep.  And the whole past month has been driving me crazy, and I- just kept acting weird because I needed you to like me back, and I couldn’t handle the thought that you didn’t, but I didn’t realize what was going on until last week, when my friends finally managed to talk some sense into me…”

In Sehun’s pause, Chanyeol gives his hand an encouraging squeeze, that same adoration radiating from his features, not having dimmed for a single second.

“Can I be totally honest with you? I’ve never done this before,” Sehun admits before Chanyeol’s even had a chance to nod. “I’ve never liked anyone, or confessed to, or dated someone, and that’s why I was in denial of my feelings for so long. Instead, I just started doing the same thing I’ve done my whole life- and I shut myself away because I was too scared of being rejected. But- that’s never worked out for me before, and I know exactly what I want, now. So, hyung,” he announces, confidently clasping onto Chanyeol’s free hand and bringing them up to his trembling chest, all the anticipation thrumming through him. “I like you, and I want to go out with you- even though it might not work out, or things might be really awkward, and I might make a terrible boyfriend-”

“Hey, that’s imposs-”

“I’m not done, hyung,” he bluntly interrupts, to which Chanyeol only snorts, amused dimples etching into his cheeks as Sehun continues on with determination, almost light-headed with it. “I’m going to try my best though, because- I want to do the same things we always do together, but I want to do couple’s things too... I want to go on cute dates, and pick out matching outfits and make you pay for them-” With hiccuped giggles, Chanyeol jostles him lightly, but Sehun only reels him back in, his momentum unbroken. “I want to listen to your music together, and for you to tell me which songs are about me, and I want to try out your lame clubs and get to know your friends properly. I want to show you off at every party so the whole campus knows you’re mine, and then to carry you home when you’re wasted from two beers.”

“Ah, you’re so mean to me,” Chanyeol fake-whines, but his twinkling eyes are scrunching shut with how wide his smile has stretched. 

“Get used to it, hyung, because what you see is what you get with me, now,” Sehun states firmly, even though it only brings attention to how vulnerable he’s just made himself, his pulse left quivering against the voltage in the air, not allowed to relax yet, because there’s one more thing he’s dying to do with this high.

“Then, can I be honest, too?” Chanyeol asks before Sehun has the chance to make his move, instead waiting to hear what has a hesitance pulling at the corner of Chanyeol’s mouth. “I’ve never... dated anyone either. Um, I mean- I never got the chance to because I didn’t meet anyone else who was gay until my second year at uni, and well- you moved in right after that... So, I have no idea what I’m doing either, but-”

“Don’t worry, hyung, we’ll make it up as we go,” Sehun is sure of, detaching one hand to smooth out the crease between Chanyeol’s eyebrows, who instantly softens and god- Sehun just wants to kiss him so badly. “Besides,” he murmurs, sight clouded over as he swallows thickly. “If anyone can figure it out, it’s us.”

“... Yeah- that sounds… good,” Chanyeol mumbles, trailing off when Sehun’s fingers move down to hold onto the edge of his jawline, their linked palms still pressed between their torsos as he tilts Chanyeol’s head to the right and starts to lean in.

“Um- there’s one other thing-” Chanyeol blurts out, Sehun stopping midway with his heart still battering against his ribs, dizzy from holding his breath this entire time. “I haven’t- actually kissed anyone before…” 

“Wait- really?” Sehun questions, instinctively drawn back to check Chanyeol’s expression.

"That’s why I freaked out that time and- and all the other times, even though I really wanted to! I mean I  _ want  _ to-” Chanyeol rushes to correct, all flustered and wide-eyed, his arms detached to flap around in a panic. “I-I still want to but I always-"

"Hyung, relax, it’s fine,” Sehun assures him, and Chanyeol’s shoulders instantly deflate, his whole body slouching against the wall with a sigh. “I’m surprised, that’s all."

“Hey, I thought this was a non-judgmental zone,” Chanyeol whines, taking off his glasses to clean them with the hem of his sleeve.

“No, I’m not judging,” Sehun promises, resisting the addictive urge to join their hands again, and instead  trying to wade through his swimming thoughts for a way to help Chanyeol feel comfortable again. “Uh, it’s just…” he stalls.

“Just what?” Chanyeol asks, suspicions high as he glares up with unframed eyes, and Sehun’s stomach twists.

“Hyung…” he starts in his most weighted voice, feeling the pressure in the room rise as he swiftly pushes off of the wall and circles in front of Chanyeol to grab his glasses from him. “You know that you’re really hot, right?”

Instantly choking, it takes Chanyeol a second of coughing before he recovers, then straightening himself back up. “I mean, yeah, I’m pretty good-looking. It’s not like I ever brag about it, though,” he jokes, trying to pass off his shrug as casual, though he still won’t meet Sehun’s half-lidded eyes, even when Sehun’s fitting the lenses back on his face and letting his touch linger.

“Well, you should, hyung,” he croons, one hand tugging Chanyeol in by the drawstring of his hood until Sehun is so close he can feel the sparks firing off him, sweat itching under Sehun’s own collar as he struggles to keep his flirts steady. “I’d say you’re almost as hot as me, hyung.”

“Almost?” Chanyeol questions, and Sehun can see that competitive flare shining in the stare he cuts him, Chanyeol playing right into the game.

“Well... it’s not like you can prove that you’re hotter,” Sehun laments, inching in until their chests bump, Chanyeol standing his ground as Sehun leers his lopsided smirk right in front of his hyung’s panting mouth. “Can you?”

Right now, after everything else between them, Sehun’s blood is pounding with need, his tunnel vision blurred red, having waited for this \ way too fucking long. But he’s going to keep teasing this moment, drawing out the suspense until the last second, even if he blacks out from the lack of oxygen-

Except out of nowhere, Chanyeol’s enveloped him, flipping them so Sehun trips over their legs before his back is crashing against the wall, held up only by how hard Chanyeol presses into him. There’s no time to even react before Chanyeol’s surged forward, and Sehun scrambles to grab onto the messy hair that he’s been dying to get his fingers tangled in this whole time, his other hand already under Chanyeol’s hoodie to clutch onto his firm waist.

And fuck- it feels so good, so  _ different  _ to touch someone that his every fibre has been lusting after, that Sehun’s seen in a thousand ways except moaning and wrenching apart his shirt like this, Chanyeol falling apart faster than even in his wildest fantasies so that Sehun can push back, only taking two stumbled steps and a loud thump for Chanyeol to be the one framed in between Sehun’s arms. 

Their lips are colliding hard enough to bruise, both of them welded together in a mess of sweat and panting and searing heat that burns Sehun from the inside out, him taking more and more as if he’s been starved until now. 

It’s only when Sehun’s heart is pounding in desperation, the light-headedness impossible to fight through any longer that he has to pull away, leaving Chanyeol to gasp for air, their wet foreheads stuck together.

“Okay, maybe you are hotter,” Chanyeol pants out against his mouth, and Sehun huffs coyly, unable to find his voice amongst the harsh battering in his chest.

Leaning back, though still staying balanced on Chanyeol’s heaving chest and the knee that’s snuck between his legs, because his own are too weak to keep him upright yet, Sehun shakily pushes the slipped glasses up Chanyeol’s nose, the action barely helping to recentre him.

Once he’s blinked past the stinging, Sehun can see that Chanyeol’s cheeks are blotched red and his eyes glazed over, and he knows he must look like an absolute wreck, too. For once, though, Sehun doesn’t even care about it, and he only grins back as all the embarrassment catches up with Chanyeol at once, him letting out a flustered cry. 

“Oh my god- did I- did we just-” Chanyeol rushes out, gesturing blindly as he whips his head around in disbelief. “This is all so-”

“I know,” Sehun assures calmly, as if he isn’t still struggling to keep himself together, as well, filled with so much happiness it feels like his watery eyes could overflow.

“And you- you  _ like _ me,” Chanyeol insists, half in amazement and half still checking, to which Sehun simply nods, not expecting to earn that hopelessly adoring look back so quickly, and it knocks Sehun breathless all over again. “Wow, okay- wow…” he whispers, gaze trailing away, and Sehun takes the opportunity to sneak closer before all the love in him bursts, until Chanyeol’s blurting out, “So, what are we doing now?”

“We’re dating, obviously,” Sehun clips, recovered quick enough to dart back and shoot Chanyeol an indignant look.

“I- no, I know that,” Chanyeol insists, instantly turning back to him with an apologetic look, even though Sehun’s only messing with him. “I meant, what should we do right _ now?” _

“Well, I  _ was  _ trying to do more of this,” Sehun grumbles, dipping back in to lick the salty bead of sweat that’s dripped under Chanyeol’s jawline.

“Th- oh, that does sound nice,” Chanyeol stutters out, Sehun able to feel the jump in pulse rate when he runs his lips further down his hyung’s neck. “But- uh, I’m just kind of wondering what’s happened to this place?”

“Huh?” Pulling back, Sehun gives the inside of their apartment a quick scan, noting that from here, Chanyeol has a better view of the trail of dirty laundry that’s spilt out from Sehun’s room, the kitchen counter littered with dirty dishes and rubbish covering every surface in sight. “Oh, right… I was just about to clean that up,” he explains innocently, to which Chanyeol puffs out a laugh with his head ducked.

“Okay, how about we make that our next priority?” he tries, to which Sehun instantly crinkles his nose in distaste.

“That sounds like the worst first date ever,” he states, knowing that his hyung is seriously considering it and that Sehun has to change his mind fast-

“We can do it together-”

“But, hyung~” Sehun suddenly coos, starting to bat his lashes with a pout, because if being hot won’t work, then putting on the cute act will, and he can see the resolve instantly melt along with his hyung’s frown. “You just got back and I’ve missed you~ Can’t we clean it up tomorrow?”

“I…” Chanyeol stops to let out a long sigh, and Sehun knows he’s won without even a fight. “Okay fine,” he gives in with a long sigh, but his eyes are sparkling, the corners of his lips already lifted up. 

With his own grin lighting up his whole chest, Sehun resolutely grabs the forgotten suitcase handle in one hand and Chanyeol’s in the other, who kicks off his favorite Nike slides back to their normal spot before following, and Sehun has never felt higher than right in this moment, as if he’s finally found exactly who he’s meant to be, and that now- he’s completely unstoppable.

  
  



End file.
